New varieties of raspberry, developed in Chile

Santa-Teresa, Santa-Catalina and Santa-Clara, - names of three new Chilean varieties of raspberries, developed by a consortium of Fruit Technology in cooperation with the faculty of agronomy of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Varieties registered in the agricultural and livestock service (SAG) and licensed in Spain and Portugal, which ensures their commercialization, as commented in the Association of exporters of fruits Chile (ASOEX).

These varieties are of interest not only for Chilean producers and exporters. They also crossed the border of Spain and Portugal who intend to plant these new varieties. To date, about 100 thousand plants sold to Chilean producers and exporters. While orders for next season has already reached about 300 thousand plants.

In his statement, Sergio Maureira, CEO of the Fruit Technology consortium, said, "Our raspberry varieties are in great demand. Those who had purchased them, describe the positive results. So far we have sold 100 thousand plants of three varieties producers in the regions of Valparaiso, Maule and Bio-Bio in Chile.

The results of the work on the plantations

According to Sergio Maureira, to date, ten manufacturers have bought about 100 thousand plants of three varieties of raspberry. One of them is Herman Sims, General Director of Agrícola y Frutícola Quihua, which currently has a plantation of 4 hectares of the three varieties, however, given good results, plans to increase it to 15 ha, and in the future to achieve the area of 40 hectares.

"We are manufacturers of raspberry for 24 years and have worked with the old varieties. Arose the need to make an urgent replacement. We were in the process of importing new varieties from the United States, and suspended the project, focusing on varieties from the consortium of Fruit Technology and Catholic University of Chile. We wanted to have the opportunity to see if it's indeed true what they said. Varieties showed us very good results," said Herman Sims.

As for results, Sims said that in the first season last year, the plants were given almost 4000 kilograms per hectare, and even now continue to bear fruit.

"We can only talk about the joyous results. Weight of berries was ataround an average of 7 to 7.5 grams, and this figure compared to Heritage, which was from 1 to 1.5 grams is a huge growth. Furthermore, the method of freezing IQF quite acceptable for such a large berry. Then everything really, really well," he said.

Agrícola y Frutícola Quihua mainly focuses on the market of frozen raspberries, so the plantations had a tendency to mechanized picking berries. "We have conducted experiments with the harvesters of different systems and all three systems worked very well. Three classes come off very well from the stalk. Without additional efforts", described Sims.

"Our company is dedicated to organic products. We are involved in the entire process, from growing grapes. We produce and export directly. America is our main market, we also sent a certain quantity of products to Canada, Australia and Europe," said the representative.

"I think these new varieties are great progress for the sector, because they have a solid juicy berry that has good resistance to post-harvest processing. Their breeding is doubtless", said Herman Sims.

Anna Ustymenko,

Club Sirius Agro Plant