Professors from the Institute of Plant Production and Health (IPSV), Dr. Carolina Contreras and Dr. Pamela Artacho, visited the farm Fundo Santa Isabel, located in the Chilean municipality of Río Bueno, on January 5th, to observe the mechanized harvest of the new raspberry varieties Wake Field and Wake Haven. Both will be intended for IQF processing and will be exported.
The visited property belongs to Agrícola Epple and Heinrich Ltda., whose partners Germán Epple and Jaime Heinrich are agricultural engineers and alumni of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences of the Austral University of Chile.
The Wake Field and Wake Haven are recently introduced varieties in Chile and were developed by Pacific Berries, a joint venture between the New Zealand organization Plant & Food Research and the American berry nursery Northwest Plant Company.
"These varieties are non-remontant, very vigorous, disease-resistant, with erect growth and a fruit with very good characteristics, suitable for mechanical harvest and with high yields. In fact, 15 months after its planting, the yield of the first harvest in the visited orchard is expected to reach 9,000 kg/ha," said Dr. Artacho.
Source: uach.cl