A partnership between New Zealand’s Miko Asia and Chinese company Yanoon BioTech is set to develop and grow the kiwifruit industry on a global scale.
The companies have been working together for several years, and in January 2016 signed an agreement to develop and commercialise new kiwifruit varieties from the Yanoon BioTech breeding program in China, with both companies working as “global development and commercialisation partners”.
Miko Asia’s Murray Malone says the breeding program probably has the most diversified kiwifruit germoplasm base in the world, with thousands of varieties going through an extensive evaluation process.
“China is where kiwifruit (Actinidia) comes from originally, and there’s thousands of wild varieties in the mountains, all with different qualities. So to get them together in a program like this is really exciting,” he says.
“And I think the new Yanoon BioTech site at JinJing outside of Changsha would also be one of the biggest areas dedicated to a kiwifruit breeding program in the world. I guess that’s what makes it interesting; kiwifruit in China come in all shapes and sizes.”
The development program sees thousands of seedlings evaluated and put through a series of tests to meet a strict selection criteria for potential development and commercialisation. Mr Malone says key factors include the yield, the harvesting time, the size of the fruit, ease of picking and packing, resistance to disease and “importantly consumer acceptability.”
“What’s unique about this program is that we’re also looking for fruit with the ability to tolerate high summer temperatures during the growing cycle without adverse effects, which is quite important with global warming and increasingly hotter climates in many of the principal growing areas around the world.”
“At the moment we’re taking out six varieties for evaluation in different parts of the world – Europe, Chile, South Africa, Australia, South Korea, Japan, and the USA. That’s another thing about our program: we’re not telling growers “plant these kiwifruit”,” he says.
“We intend to set up growing blocks in these countries to demonstrate the performance of these varieties in local growing conditions. Because while kiwifruit grows in a range of areas, some might grow well in China and might not grow well somewhere else with a different climate, so we want to make sure they do as well as we expect them to in every country.”
Mr Malone says they are “quietly confident” in their six varieties, which have proven versatile and look set to perform well in all the designated growing areas.
He says they are particularly interested in developing new green varieties for commercial sale, and also have some gold and red varieties, and very niche berry types.
“We see a particular opportunity with new green varieties, which also sets us apart from some other programs where the focus has largely been on golds,” he says.
“Effectively most kiwifruit marketed around the world is still the old Hayward variety and the reason is because it’s very durable, it stores well and has good taste, so it’s held its place in the market. But it does have a number of issues. Appearance is not always good, it does sometimes have a hard core, and it’s hairy. What we already have out of this program is supreme green varieties to potentially replace Hayward.”
The partnership between Miko Asia and Yanoon BioTech has also considered the marketing and demand for new kiwifruit varieties, with Mr Malone saying there is definitely consumer demand for diversity.
“Realistically supermarkets won’t increase shelf space without good reason, and that applies to everything. But we think these varieties will increase shelf space and consumption of kiwifruit,” he says.
“I think there’s room for two or more greens, a couple of golds, to cover varying harvest periods, and a good red variety. Ultimately the market will determine this, and you can have many, many varieties but to increase shelf space you’ve got to have something special.”
The thorough, global testing process set out by Miko Asia and Yanoon BioTech means that consumers are years away from tasting these new varieties in most countries.
There are already a number of small commercial blocks in China growing these new varieties specifically for the domestic market there, while Mr Malone says plant material of the varieties sent to other countries has to go through a quarantine processes before planting can begin.
“With the quarantine process, every country generally has a 12 month minimum internment period, so you’re actually looking at a four to five year trial process. It’s a long process but we feel it’s important to do evaluations properly.”
He says there is already strong interest from a number of growers who have sampled the fruit from the breeding program, but that we “won’t be licensing large plantings of these varieties until such trial evaluations have been undertaken locally”.
“We’re very excited about the potential of some of these varieties and what it means for the industry. There are certainly better varieties than Hayward and it’s time they were available to consumers,” he says.
