Consistent flavour, good fruit quality and long shelf life are set to make two new raspberry varieties, Malling Bella and Malling Charm, strong favourites with consumers and retailers in the future, says breeder NIAB EMR.
They are the first two raspberry varieties from the East Malling Rubus Breeding Consortium, a partnership originally formed in 2015 between NIAB EMR and the Swiss nursery company Lubera, and more recently joined by commercial soft fruit specialists WB Chambers, Onubafruit and Perfection Fresh. The Consortium breeds, develops and commercialises raspberries and blackberries, internationally, for the professional and garden markets.
Malling Bella and Malling Charm will be launched at the UK’s National Fruit Show in Kent on 26 October. NIAB EMR’s plant breeder Felicidad Fernández says, “These two new primocane fruiting cultivars are already receiving positive feedback from UK retailers and will be grown commercially in the UK from 2018.”
Malling Bella is a vigorous, mid-season primocane fruiter, with large, easy-to-pick berries, that exhibits heavy yields and suitable for double cropping and long-cane production. It shows good adaptation to UK and southern European climates with very good fruit quality and shelf-life.
Malling Charm is an early primocane variety, with moderate vigour and short-to medium-height canes. It also has large, easy-to-pick berries and is a good potential premium variety because of its sweetness and juiciness.
Both varieties are currently available from the Consortium members WB Chambers and Onubafruit.
The East Malling Rubus Breeding Consortium is still expanding and actively looking for new members in Central/Northern Europe, the Americas and Africa to fulfil its global ambitions. For further information, contact NIAB EMR’s felicidad.fernandez [at] emr.ac.uk (Felicidad Fernández).
