A few weeks ago, the second “Meda Cherry Field Day” was held in Holland, an event organized by Meda Cherry, a Chilean company dedicated to the research and production of new early cherry programs.
The field day was held at the “Fruit Tech Campus” and aimed to promote IVU varieties and their advances in Europe; it was attended by participants from Italy, Spain, Switzerland, England, Germany, Holland, Slovenia, Hungary, Moldova, Australia and Chile.
“The first thing was the level of assistance, they took the trouble to take flights from different places; They were people who are interested in the industry, in our projects, and the most important thing was to confirm in the field that our varieties, being early, are quality mid-season varieties, that for them, the most important thing is to find varieties before Kordia, but of good quality, because all they have today, in general, are varieties that do not meet the quality of the fruit, they are soft, they are varieties with cracking problems, etc. " explained Alejandro Navarro, Director of IVU Chile.
This research has generated great interest in IVU varieties from the European industry; in fact, for some years now Meda Cherry has had a “test” in Europe, developed in Holland, which to date has been very well evaluated.
The programme also has development agreements in our country and also in the United States and South Africa; Australia and New Zealand could soon join.
“They came from two parts of Australia, from the island of Tasmania and from mainland Australia, from companies that are interested in looking for the same thing as in Chile, as is the case of Australia; in the case of Moldova, they commented that with the issue of Russia being blocked, fruit shipments take about 40 days as happens in Chile, so in the end they are very interested in this “varieties” project because it has a long conservation period to be able to reach more distant markets, due to a logistical issue, or a current issue that can last due to the issue of the war, and they can still reach markets with better quality than today,” indicated Giampaolo Dal Pane, Director of Innovation Fruit, Italy.
The event started with an introduction to the IVU breeding program by Alejandro Navarro, Director of IVU Chile; Ronald Vermeulen also spoke about the “IVU Cherry Evaluation at Fruitmasters”. Sjaak Walraven, for his part, spoke about “Tests in Europe and the status of virus-free material at NAKT”.
“People were satisfied with the good organization, and the varieties also met expectations. The place where we held the field day was very comfortable, the talks were of a very good level, a lot of information about the quality of the early varieties, which was later confirmed on the ground, and finally, we had a meal in a field, where they have a cherry museum. There was a very good atmosphere, but also the attendees were able to realize that what we were talking about was true, I think that was the most interesting thing, because one can talk a lot about theory, but in practice, they saw the sizes, the firmness, and we also told them when we are going to start the project in Europe,” Alejandro Navarro concluded.
