Total Produce UK’s strawberry breeding arm Redeva has announced its operation has been expanded through an exclusive agreement with California-based Plant Sciences International (PSI).
Tim Morton, Redeva’s general manager, said: “It offers us the opportunity to broaden our focus to select not only strawberries, but raspberries and blackberries.”
Redeva has had considerable success over the previous nine years selecting new strawberry varieties out of the 7,000 seedlings under trial for the UK, such as Red Glory, and had major success in Egypt with Suzana and Red Merlin, where these now account for a large proportion of exports. Headway has also been made in South Africa and Florida.
Morton declared the move represents a new era for the division.
He said: “PSI undertakes three times the number of crosses we have been able to achieve in the past, so we potentially have a much greater chance of identifying more ideal berries for the UK.”
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