30 why varieties fail-j. bonany

Why do new varieties (apple) fail or succeed ?

J. Bonany, IRTA

Varieties are in the core of the fruit bussiness

RETAIL

POST-HARVEST

ORCHARD

VARIETY

The “ideal” variety

Friendly to the grower

•Productive

•Well adapted to the area of production

•Good fruit quality (pack-out)

Friendly to the value chain (warehouse, wholesaler, retailer

•Good storage

•Long shelf life

•High rotation

Friendly to the consumer:

•Flavour

•Food safety

•Health

•Convenient

•Price

Of course not a single cause for failure

#1 Poor field or chain performance:

Pre-harvest problems

Post-harvest problems

Poor technical accompaniment

#2 Marketing issues

#3 Consumer acceptance

Insufficient taste/flavour/texture quality

Innapropiate consumer segment target

Page 4

# 1 Poor field and chain performance

Field performance

Productivity, internal and external fruit quality,

tree habit, …

Root of the problem: selection in different

environment of final production site

South:

Sunburn

Pre-harvest drop

Poor colour development

Fruit finish (russeting, cracking, scarf skin)

Pest and disesases

Powdery mildew

Codling moth

Northern production areas

Cold hardiness

Fruit size

Pest and diseases

Canker

Page 5

Photo: Ontario, Ministry of Industrial and Rural Affaires

#1 Poor field and chain performance

Postharvest performance

Scald

Bitter pit

Bruising

Lenticelosis

Internal browning

Other postharvest disorders

Some of the problems discovered only

after initial years of large scale production

Page 6

#1 Poor field and chain performance

Lack of technical guidance

Some of the problems can be managed

Need for a technical accompaniment by

breeder or developer of the variety

On site trials

Changes with managed varieties

Page 7

#2 Marketing issues

Page 8

GALA RED DELICIOUS GOLDEN FUJI GRANNY PINK LADY

APPLE VARIETIES or APPLE CATEGORIES

#2 Marketing issues

Page 9

ROYAL GALA

BROOKFIELD

VENUS

#2 Marketing issues

GOLDEN SMOOTHEE® REINDERS CRIELAARD ®

#2 Marketing issues

Quite rigid categories in the supermarket shelves

Industry succesful in changing within the apple categories

Clonal selection (ie GALAXY by BROOKFIELD)

Not so succesful in introducing new categories

In spite of >70 apple breeding programs

Improvement within the category beyond clonal selection almost nil

Breeding gains not moved rapidly enough into production

#2 Marketing issues

Development of new variety (category) is very costly

Promotional costs

Quality assurance systems associated also are capital demanding

Need for an scheme to secure investment

Club or managed varieties

Uniqueness (from the consumer perspective)

In the search for a variety that is so unique that creates a category by itself

However, until now uniqueness has been based either

Flavour

Appearance: skin color

Flesh color

Page 12

#3 Consumer acceptance

VARIETY SSC (ºBrix) ACIDITY (g/L) FIRMNESS (Kg)

GOLDEN 14,2 4,7 6,7

ROYAL GALA 13,1 3,2 7,5

STANDARD

VARIETIES

RED DELICIOUS 13,3 2,5 6,6

FUJI 15,6 3,7 7,0

GRANNY SMITH 12,1 8,7 7,8

AVERAGE 13,6 4,6 7,1

RUBENS 14,5 5,6 6,9

KANZI 14,7 7,0 7,5

NEW VARIETIES JAZZ 14,8 5,7 9,1

PACIFIC QUEEN 17,0 3,4 8,8

PINK LADY 15,8 5,8 8,1

AVERAGE 15,4 5,7 8,1

#3 Consumer acceptance

Consumer segmentation

Not all consumers like the same

Need to target each variety to each target group

Are target groups based on age, gender, country ?

ARI

FUJ

JON

WEL

RUB

GD

GC

JUN

LIG

KAN

PL

(+) C1

C2

C3

C4

C5

C6

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3

A2

A1

Preference Map (A1, A2)

#3 Consumer acceptance (preference map)

Page 15

F/Sweetness (+)

SSC (+)

Acidty (+)

Sourness(+)

Firmness (+)

ARI

FUJ

JON

WEL

RUB

GD

GC

JUNLIG

KAN

PL

(+) C1C2

C3C4

C5

C6

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3

A3

A1

Preference Map (A1, A3)

# Consumer acceptance (preference map)

Page 16

T/Juiciness (+)

T/Mealiness(-)

T/Crispness (+)

Acidity (+)

Sourness(+)

Firmness(+)

SUMMARY OF CONSUMER SEGMENTS

POPULATION

MEGA GROUP A

68%

+ Sweetness - Sourness >14,4 ºBrix

<3,6 g/L

C6 6%

+Sweetness >15 º Brix

< 6 g/L

C1 21%

C2 38%

C5 3%

MEGA GROUP B

32 %

+ Sourness + Crispness

>7,0 g/L

C3 10%

+Sourness + Crispness

>7,8 g/L

C4 22 %

GOLDCHIEF 8.0

RUBENS 7.9

FUJI 7.9

PINK LADY 7.8

GOLDEN D. 7.8

FUJI 7.7

GOLDEN D. 7.1

GOLDCHIEF 6.5

PINK LADY 6.4

RUBENS 6.2

GOLDCHIEF 7.0

FUJI 6.8

PINK LADY 6.7

RUBENS 6.6

GOLDEN D. 6.5

GOLDCHIEF 5.3

FUJI 5.1

PINK LADY 4.9

RUBENS 4.8

GOLDEN D. 4.7

KANZI 6.7

ARIANE 6.1

JUNAMI 5.9

RUBENS 5.7

GOLDCHIEF 5.7

KANZI 7.8

ARIANE 7.4

JUNAMI 7.4

RUBENS 7.0

LIGOL 7.0

Focus on field and postharvest performance

Field and postharvest performance

Consumer acceptance

Marketing

Page 18

Avoiding failures

Need for a more efficient system

Breeding varieties

Evaluation varieties

Breeding programs around the world (+70)

P&F

R

WA

JAPA

N

SUD

AFIRCA NFRUITEC

BRASIL

EPAGRI

EEUU UC EEUU

WSU

EEUU

UM EUROPE

>30

RUSSIA

CHINA EEUU

PRI

JONAGOLD HONEY CRISP

FUJI

PINK LADY

ROYAL GALA JAZZ

ARIANE

RUBENS MODI

KANZI

PINOVA

DIWA

Page 21

Variety testing

Could we do it differently ?

Should we design the breeding programs in a different way ?

Select once and test in multiple sites versus

Select in multiple sites at once

Could we predict the performance of a variety in a certain region ?

Could we do the testing of varieties in a different way ?

Now is very similar to the ‘spray and pray’

Can the genomics tools be of any use in this prediction ?

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