US crop innovation company Pairwise has launched Fontana™, a primocane blackberry for the commercial fresh market. The plant is about half the height of a conventional blackberry.
According to Pairwise’s announcement, Fontana grows to roughly 3.5 to 5 feet (about 1 to 1.5 metres). That means growers can plant more densely, with no pruning and minimal trellis work. The variety is based on an existing variety from Plant Sciences Genetics (PSG), chosen for its flavour and fruit quality.
“We started with a great berry and improved the plant around it,” said Ryan Bartlett, Chief Technology Officer at Pairwise.
What Fontana offers, by the company’s figures
- Faster to harvest: 109–125 days, compared with about 180 days for standard primocane varieties
- More harvests a year: 1.6–1.8 cycles, compared with 1–1.4
- Higher yields: more than double the annual yield of standard varieties, according to Pairwise’s comparison
- Bigger berries: 8–10g, compared with 6–7.5g for standard fresh-market blackberries
- Fruit quality: high firmness and low colour reversion, with shelf life on a par with standard varieties
Bartlett said Fontana “helps growers produce significantly more fruit per acre while simplifying some of the most labor-intensive parts” of blackberry production. He told FreshPlaza that this made it “a true win-win-win — for growers, for retailers, and for consumers.”
Pairwise says the earlier, more concentrated harvest could also let the variety be grown in more locations.
Thornless and seedless to come
Fontana is the first of several Pairwise blackberries in development. The company says thornless and seedless varieties are also in the pipeline. Pairwise is based in Durham, North Carolina, was founded in 2017, and is best known for its gene-editing work through its Fulcrum® platform. The announcement doesn’t say how Fontana itself was developed.
Why it matters
Labour is one of the biggest costs in blackberry growing, and much of it goes on pruning, tying in canes and picking from tall plants. A compact plant that crops faster goes straight at those costs. That’s relevant for UK and European growers too, many of whom grow blackberries under tunnels where space and labour are tight. Pairwise hasn’t said when or where Fontana will be available outside the US.
Find out more at https://www.pairwise.com
Image Credit: Pairwise
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