The amount of raspberry variety Polka grown both at home and abroad is on the rise, according to Hargreaves Plants, with a 10 percent rise in UK sales predicted for this year.
The firm’s Jamie Petchell said that Polka has ‘huge adaptability’, and in only four years has come to be the most widely grown primocane raspberry in the UK that is made available to all fruit producers.
Its versatility is put down to a combination of high yields of quality fruit, reliability and ease of management.
Polka was handed first place in the National Fruit Show ‘Best Raspberry’ division in 2004 and 2006. It has also been proving increasingly popular overseas, with successful trials or sales taking place in locations as diverse as North and South America, South Africa, Asia and Australia.
Production licences have now also been handed out in most of those locations, with most of the Polka stocks released abroad having come from micropropagation.
Jane Fairlie, technical manager of Hargreaves’ Rubus operations, said she felt that the ongoing introduction of high health grade stocks plays an important role. “Top health grade plant material takes up a large area of our tissue culture laboratory,” she stressed.
“The quality has been excellent to date and the closer to this top level we can release grower canes means higher health, better vigour and generally a superior performance.”
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