Raspberry: Summer fruiting variety trial

This project seeks to meet the industry requirement for identifying new raspberry varieties which offer consistent cropping of high-quality fruit over an extended season, primarily for fresh market production.  This trial focuses on promising summer-fruiting cultivars produced by non-UK breeding programmes, to examine their performance under UK climatic and crop management regimes. 

The cultivars and advanced selections included in this trial were selected from those showing significant promise from trials or commercial production in their countries of origin.  In particular, they appear to offer desirable attributes (e.g. cropping season, marketable yield, berry size, quality, shelf life, ease of plant management, pest or disease resistance) better, or at least on a par with, the current industry standards Tulameen, Glen Ample and Octavia.

This replicated trial compares eight varieties covering the UK natural season of cropping for summer-fruiting raspberries with the cultivars Glen Fyne, Tulameen and Octavia.  In addition, up to eight single observation plots, primarily for visual comparison, were established, each with an advanced selection or cultivar from a non-UK breeding programme, which claim to offer traits particularly useful to the UK producer e.g. resistance / tolerance to raspberry root rot, very firm high quality fruit, very early or very late cropping.