Israeli developers are hoping to lead the way in the race to develop new peppers, one of the hottest items on the global agriculture market.
The latest developments are the new capsicum annum varieties bred and developed by an Israeli researcher at the Robert H. Smith Institute of Plant Sciences & Genetics in Agriculture of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot.
Dr Yonatan Elkind, 51, started some 13 years ago a research project aimed at developing, by hybridization and selection, pepper varieties that can be grown without heating in greenhouses and nethouses in countries having mild winter conditions.
Zeraim-Gedera, one of Israel's leading seed companies, identified some seven years ago the potential of Elkind's research and has since supported it.
The seed company now has the exclusive rights to grow and market Elkind's pepper seeds, which are sold at an average price of €0.25 per single seed.
"Seeds of high quality are not sold by weight, but like diamonds. The price, according to the variety, is per unit. If one translates this into weight/price, the price of one ounce of top quality capsicum seeds is €743 - more than three times the price of gold," Dr Elkind noted.
He explained that what characterises in particular the new Faculty-developed capsicum varieties grown in non-heated greenhouses in mild winter conditions, such as in southern Spain and in the Arava region in Israel, is the fruit setting: "Consumers prefer nicely-shaped, tasty, large size peppers with as few seeds as possible in the internal part of the fruit.
"We had a problem, since the size of the fruit and its shape are determined by the seeds: the more seeds, the bigger and more attractive the fruit will be.
"But the preference of the consumer is a dominant market factor, so we embarked several years ago on developing a large, well-shaped and tasty capsicum containing very few seeds."
The Dutch growing system was tried in Israel and failed, as it was economically unfeasible, and the taste of the capsicum was inferior to that of the fruit grown under natural conditions.
The new varieties grown in the Arava region in Israel are characterised by high yields, reaching nearly 50 tonnes per acre, compared with 20t some five years ago; long shelf-life; and on-the-vine storage.
The Israeli researcher explained that these varieties could remain on the plant for several weeks, while preserving their freshness. "This is an important economic factor. At times of shortage on the markets, Israeli farmers can harvest the fruit and sell it overseas, thereby fetching premium prices," he noted.
Zeraim-Gedera, realising that there is more profit in marketing top-quality pepper seeds, is now a major supplier of the new seed varieties to Spain.
It turns out that these seeds generate higher profits than quality tomato seeds.
Spanish growers use some 120 million capsicum seeds a year, grown on 10,000 hectares, of which 6,000ha are comprised of the California-type capsicums and 4,000ha of the Israeli-developed seeds.
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