Addressing the demand for high quality raspberry propagation
Title: Improving propagation efficiency and production sustainability in intensive cultivation systems for a Kent-bred raspberry variety
Funder: Growing Kent & Medway, Innovate UK
Industry partners: Blaise Plants, Recoir
Term: July 2023 to June 2025
Project leaders: Louisa Robinson-Boyer, Matevz Papp-Rupar, Feli Fernandez
With growers moving to short-term cropping of raspberries and increasingly planting long-cane material, the annual demand for high quality raspberry canes has been steadily rising. At present though, this demand is outstripping supply and UK growers are heavily dependent on imported plants. The quality of plants purchased is not always uniform and plant survival rates is lower than growers would expect. To guarantee the production of uniform, high quality, healthy plants, propagators are currently forced to employ expensive production techniques. A cheaper, more reliable system of production is needed.
The project
This project aims to develop an integrated and sustainable management strategy for raspberry propagation, incorporating the use of commercially available beneficial microorganisms into production systems. Previous research by NIAB scientists in strawberry propagation using arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) has demonstrated improved plant establishment with fewer inputs, and the beneficial microbes have remained active after a period of cold storage. In this project, AMF will be incorporated into the systems used for raspberry tip, long-cane, and primocane production, with the aim of increasing the survival rate of the plants, whilst enhancing plant uniformity and final yields.