FRUIT LOGISTICA 2017

•••4••• Innovationen C oordinated by the University of Málaga, the new research project GoodBerry aims to fur- ther improve our knowledge of the procedures that facilitate and accelerate the development of well-accepted, desirable and high- quality berry fruits – even under non-favourable growth condi- tions such as high temperatures. Focusing on strawberry, rasp- berry and black currant as model crop species, the project with a total budget of 4.87 million Euro will investigate mechanisms and new factors impacting on yield, thus allowing the design of strat- egies for improved adaptability of fruit production to non-optimal environmental conditions. Economic, sustainable and effective This will help making production more controllable and more ro- bust in the future. “The innova- tive aspect of GoodBerry is that it takes into consideration, in an unprecedented way, all develop- mental processes impacting on yield, including flower initiation and dormancy, to deliver new technical solutions for economic, sustainable and effective berry production in Europe,” says Dr. Sonia Osorio from the Universi- ty of Málaga and coordinator of GoodBerry. The project is based on the de- velopment of an integrative, multi-scale strategy to identify new molecular factors (metabo- lites/genes/alleles/loci) confer- ring the capacity to maintain high yield performance and high fruit quality in extreme environmen- tal conditions. While the use of novel methodologies for genetic improvement of berries in differ- ent environments is still absent in current breeding programmes, GoodBerry will build on novel mo- lecular tools to apply cutting-edge genomic and metabolomics based approaches to deliver holistic so- lutions addressing the challenges of increasing productivity efficien- cy, crop resilience and food qual- ity in the light of climate changes. Within the frame of the overall work programme Hochschule Geisenheim University (HGU) is in- volved in the evaluation of floral initiation and induction as well as dormancy control of strawberry, raspberry and black currant by phenotyping and identifying ge- netic factors in these processes of selected cultivars that show varying adaptation to diverse en- vironments. Moreover, HGU will analyze strawberry and raspberry fruit quality including secondary metabolites of the above men- tioned cultivars for all partners. Within Goodberry, HGU (Dr. Erika Krüger, Department of Pomology) is responsible for Work Package 1 “Identification on environmental influences on flower initiation, dormancy and fruit quality traits of established cultivars of diverse adaption to different environ- ments”. This department takes also care of the agronomic traits and standard fruit quality. The ge- netic evaluation is performed by the Department of Biology (Basti- enne Brauksiepe and Dr. Klaus Eimert) while the Department of Wine and Beverage Technology (Prof. Frank Will) will analyze the chemical fruit compounds. Demand-driven innovation GoodBerry brings together 19 partnering institutions from Eu- rope, China and Chile. The con- sortium comprises internationally renowned academic groups with extensive experience in plant breeding, plant genomics, and plant metabolite profiling, as well as innovative small and medium- sized technology companies ac- tive in the berry-breeding sector. Moreover, pursuing a demand- driven innovation approach Good- Berry involves various stakehold- er groups such as berry farmer associations and breeders at all stages of the project – from idea to application. Fresh berries are highly popular in Europe all year around: In recent years, consumer demand for fresh berries outside the main production season has increased significantly. More controllable and more robust GoodBerry: Strategies for improved fruit production under non-optimal environmental conditions Focusing on strawberry, raspberry and black currant as model crop species, the research project aims to further improve our knowledge of the procedures that facilitate and accele- rate the development of well-accepted, desirable and high-quality berry fruits – even under non-favourable growth conditions such as high temperatures. Photo: www.sonjawinzer.de / pixelio.de Für Kräuter und Salat-Anbau Mit D-Grade ® entscheiden Sie sich für 100% Natur! Desch Plantpak BV | Altenaweg 12 | NL - 5145 PC Waalwijk | T +31 (0)416 562 426 HALLE 1.2 STAND B17 Besuchen Sie uns DESCH.NL