Fruit breeding is a numbers game in many ways, and that’s especially true with berries. Breeders take pollen from one variety, cross it with another and then harvest the literal fruit of their labor. From there, these crosses grow to become seedlings, which will be whittled down in test plots and sensory evaluations.
“This is a huge investment,” says Brian Bocock, CEO of MBG Marketing. “We’re working on stuff that might be in stores 15 years down the road.”
MBG and Naturipe invited media to take a look at its Grand Junction, Mich., breeding program as it seeks to create the next generation of varieties.
Julie Cromie, plant breeding manager with Naturipe, says that her breeding team makes about 100 different crosses a year, and each seed created from those crosses is a genetically unique seedling. Seeds from the same cross in the harvested blueberry are similar, but different.
“Every seed from an individual flower pollination is genetically unique, like siblings,” she says. “To find that one new variety that will make Michigan the No. 1 producer, we need to look at every unique genetic combination.”
Naturipe creates crosses for northern highbush and southern highbush varieties. Northern highbush varieties are better suited for colder climates, whereas southern highbush varieties need fewer chill hours and are better suited for warmer climates.
This crossing season lasts several months.
“We like to say breeding is an art and a science,” Cromie says. “There’s a lot of data collection, a lot of observations ... as our team of breeders and technicians are taking on our many different trial plots. We’re noting down all that our growers share with us as well, and we’re compiling that and making the best decisions that we can statistically to result in the next best variety.”
There’s also a bit of an X-factor that goes into it, Cromie says, adding that this includes setting the trial variety in an area of the country where it will succeed.
“We are, in a sense, crossing our fingers that we’re going to find something exciting today,” she says.
The team evaluates each selection on 60 different traits, with roughly half desired by consumers and half aimed at growers, Cromie says.
“When we make that cross, it’s several years of evaluating them, testing them at our in-house experimental farm as well as partnering with our grower cooperative members to see how they perform under their commercial management systems,” she says.
Naturipe’s breeding team also evaluates picking scars on the fruit, as “an open scar can lead to water loss, shriveling or mold,” Cromie explains.
The goal is to find ones with the best sum of characteristics, and at the end of the trialing process, Cromie says she hopes to have three to five advanced selections.
“It’s a lot of work, time, energy, and teamwork to make it all happen,” she says. “But the result at the end of the day is going to be the variety that the grower wants to plant on their farm.”
Meeting Consumer Demand for Crunch, Sweetness and Shelf Life
The Naturipe team makes these crosses to meet consumers’ demand and expectations in the future.
MBG Marketing’s Bocock says Naturipe aims to breed varieties “that delight, that make the consumer happy every single time.”
This includes a focus on breeding out mealiness in berries to hit on consumers’ interest in a crunchier and crisper texture. Cromie says the Naturipe breeding team processes selections in a lab to evaluate how the berries hold up in storage, the sugar and acid content, how firm the berries are, how consistent and uniform the eating experience is.
“All of those things matter to our retailers and consumers,” she says.
Cromie also points out that a crunchier, crisper texture not only provides a better overall eating experience for consumers, but also “lasts longer in the fridge.” Delivering that consistent eating experience is paramount.
While texture, crunch and firmness are critical attributes of the next generation of blueberries, “blueberry flavor is taking on a life of its own,” Bocock says.
Cromie points to the ever-growing blueberry category.
“There are jumbo fruits, there are extra sweet fruits, and so when we find something exciting in the field, like a novel, interesting flavor that we think our friends and family would love, we get to be the ones to push that on to the next step,” she says.
Cromie says her team has successfully created blueberries with mango and peach flavors, adding that this future-looking flavor innovation is possible.
“Mango, passion fruit, pineapple, popcorn flavors, like a jellybean package; there’s a market opportunity for these novel flavors,” she explains. “Imagine a pack of blueberries 10 years from now with mango, cinnamon and peach in the same three-pack.”
Bocock says these flavors come through natural breeding, not genetic modification, and look the same as a standard blueberry but with a different taste profile.
“It is truly amazing,” he says.
Joe Klick, associate vice president of product management at Naturipe Farms, says berries are nature’s dessert and a healthy, ready-to-eat snack. Consumers also want experiential eating, he says, whether that’s a “new taste [or] a new hint of flavor.”
“We’re moving into proprietary varieties that are really going to drive us into the future with the right taste, right quality and right shelf life as we go into the next 10, 15 years,” he says. “Having those kind of flavors and other things and getting people excited about such a healthy product is just such a beautiful thing as you look into the future.”
Balancing Flavor Innovation With High Yields for Farmers
Bocock says Naturipe ultimately seeks to develop next-generation varieties that not only delight the consumer but are economically viable for the blueberry grower.
“The goal of the program is to find those varieties that match the consumer’s needs with the grower’s needs,” he says. “So, make sure you have a plant that the grower can harvest successfully, that the picker can pick at a rate that they can make a real-life living for their kids and that the yield per acre is such that the grower can pay for a Thanksgiving dinner and send their kid to college.”
Lance Fritz, owner of Brookside Farms and an MBG grower, says when it comes to the next generation of fruit, he wants something that’s easy to grow. Part of Brookside Farms is dedicated to Naturipe variety field trials.
Fritz says it’s a benefit to be able to walk out to the test plot, noting, “We can come look at it, we can come taste test it whenever we want.” He says, as a third-generation grower, his family takes pride in hosting test varieties and trials.
“One of the best things about having that is you can see what’s coming down the road,” he says. “[For] the future of the industry, even here in the state of Michigan — for us to compete with other growing regions — our quality, the yields, we have to do better on [those], and that starts right there.”
Fritz says specific production windows are another crucial part of the evaluation process, as he wants varieties to even out the season instead of having peaks and valleys.
He looks for varieties that grow in a bush-type structure, offer ease of picking and the eating qualities consumers seek.
“We want something that yields really well for us,” he says. “Here in the state of Michigan, we do get hard winters, so something that can withstand the winter. We want good quality in the fruit — something that we can pick, stays firm from the time we pick it through packing it and getting it to the consumer. Size is something we look for. Flavor is something we look for. And as the farmer, we also look for the bush structure of the plant as well.”
Fritz seeks something that is more upright in growing structure and doesn’t bend over when loaded with fruit.
Typically, if there’s a more advanced selection, he says he’ll plant about a 2.5-acre block “and see if it’s something that can work for us down the road.”
Bocock says margins are not what they used to be, which means growers have had to focus on efficiencies in production, harvest, picking, packing, farm management and more. But he says varieties that help growers in some of those facets are also important.
“We can be the most efficient organization in the entire world and go out of business,” he says. “But out here we can make one magical cross and win the day. Win multiple years in a row because this one magical cross is so much better than anything in the whole marketplace.”
