The blueberry team had a busy spring in the northern hemisphere looking at the new blueberry genetics from GPG. The standouts were Tropical Blue, Maverick and Gladiator, with Sweet Duchess producing some great flavour components. This great flavour trait in Sweet Duchess has also been experienced at trial sites in Mexico.

Tropical Blue looks like the preferred variety to replace the significant areas of Snowchaser still widely grown for its earliness in many parts of Europe. The fruit size, yield and flavour of Tropical Blue is a quantum leap ahead of Snowchaser offering growers and consumers a better alternative to the now-dated variety.

Maverick has been the talk of the town. Evergreen, very early, great and consistent fruit quality with exceptional yields in the first year of harvest. Yields repeatedly exceeding 4.5 kg’s per plants and that’s from 9cm plants. Clients travelled from all corners of the globe to see this as we wanted to let the genetics do the talking… Maverick is shaping up to be one of the most interesting varieties to enter the blueberry sector, in years.

Gladiator has been slightly behind in terms of our development program but rapidly became a shining star when people started to see and taste the fruit. Gladiator has been producing 18-22mm berries with perhaps the best bloom and flavour in the industry today. Growers and retailers have been staggered by the fruit quality.