Breedx has grown in leaps and bounds over the past three years to now offer continuity of product presence of sweet and seedless peppers and speciality tomatoes on the supermarket shelves all year round. This is mainly due to their development of new varieties, tolerant to both hot and cold conditions during fruit set.
Lior Carmeli, Breedx CEO: "Breedx main focus is to develop speciality vegetables with consumer benefits. We focus our development on two crops: peppers and tomatoes. Pepperito, the Breedx brand name for sweet seedless peppers, continues to be a favourite healthy snack in Europe and North America."
Breedx varieties are grown in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico for North American markets, Spain for the EU market and Israel for the local market, says Carmeli. "Breedx latest developments, all grown from seeds, include intermediate resistance to PMMV (L4), Powdery Mildew and TSWV." This is significant as many growing areas around the world are struggling with these diseases.
He says the present Pepperito portfolio has three colours, "Red, orange and yellow so that the growers can have the option to pack a nice multicolour assortment. We also focus on tomatoes. Breedx is highly consumer-oriented, the company has taken the mantra of 'Taste Tomato' and, using classical plant breeding techniques, is well on the way to commercialize special varieties."
The breeding technique they use naturally alters the fructose/glucose ratio and the balance between sweetness and acidity, which was being developed as far back as 1991, by the Volcani Center in Israel. "The goal was to develop tomato varieties with improved taste, reminiscent of the 'tomatoes of old'. The strategy adopted was to utilize wild species of tomato to modify and improve sugar metabolism and accumulation in the commercial tomato fruit. Today, the same Volcani researchers have teamed-up with the Breedx breeders," states Carmeli.
He explains the breeding process further. "The Breeding Group can increase soluble sugars and to control glucose and fructose levels and control the sugar/acid ration by the use of molecular markers linked directly to specific genes. Of the varieties being developed in this program, three have been commercialized, distinguished by very special taste and a unique mottled/striped colouring. They are single pick, fruit sizes between 8 – 25 grams with Brix of no less than 9.0. These varieties are being trialled today worldwide, in Europe, in North America, in Japan, in South Africa and in Israel. Recently, Breedx has introduced both Intermediate Resistance (IR) to ToBRFV and the ability to fruit-set at high temperatures for the most advanced varieties in its breeding program and will continue to work in this direction," concludes Carmeli.
For more information:
Yasmin Sagiv
Breedx
Tel: +972 52 9404726
Email: [email protected]
www.breedx.com