Industries · Horticulture
Berry crops
Berry crops are an area we're interested in. Tissue culture could provide clean planting material for strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, and blackberry production — an industry where systemic viruses limit yield and longevity.
Why tissue culture
Berry crops are vegetatively propagated and systemically infected with viruses that reduce yield over the planting cycle. Tissue culture, often combined with virus elimination by meristem-tip culture, is the standard pathway for producing foundation-level clean planting material for modern berry varieties.
- Disease-free runners and plantlets for new plantings
- Rapid multiplication of new cultivars from small licensed starts
- Clean-stock maintenance for variety holders and nurseries
- Support for import and export of licensed berry varieties
Why this interests us
Berry propagation is an area we work in at small scale: initiation of selected material and protocol work for a cultivar. If you're a grower, nursery or breeder working in this space, we'd be glad to start a conversation.
References
- Hort Innovation industry funds: Strawberry, Raspberry & Blackberry, Blueberry.
Also at MeristemLab: which plant-pathogen test answers which question from MeristemLab Diagnostics, and production-record software for tissue-culture labs.