The Agricultural Research Council (ARC), in partnership with the South African Table Grape Industry (SATI) and Culdevco launched the seedless breeding red table grape variety called Joybells at the South African National Pavilion during the Fruit Logistica Trade Fair in Berlin, Germany last week.
Joybells was first cultivated in 2001 by table grape breeder and Senior Researcher at ARC, Phyllis Burger.
“Based on the increase in the industry and consumer demands, as a research council together with the industry, we started to locally invest more into the seedless breeding programme in the past ten years,” Burger said.
“To get varieties in the table grape sector most South African growers relied heavily on imported varieties that had to be adapted to our climate. Therefore, there was a need to cultivate a breeding programme locally,” she added.
SATI Chief Executive Officer Willem Bestbier said with the introduction of Joybells to the global table grape industry raised South Africa’s profile as a serious table grape grower and supplier.
“The table grape industry globally is spoilt for choice. There are many breeding programmes that are available in international markets, but nothing beats a home-bred success that has all the local breeding objectives focusing on our own reality like soil, climate, the market that we serve, farmers’ skills, and other inputs constraints or challenges that we face as the industry,” said Bestbier.
He added that experience over many years had showed that a home-bred and locally evaluated breeding programme often performs better than an imported one and that the risks are lower.
Culdevco General Manager Dr Leon von Mollendorff said that as the marketing and licensing company for South African deciduous fruit industry varieties, they were proud to partner with ARC and SATI to launch the freshest addition to its varieties.
“Of the five recent varieties that have been released by Culdevco and the ARC, Joybells is the most successful to be commercially released in the global market. To top this fruitful result, market feedback from prominent global retailers has been immensely positive, adding to the promise of the commercial success in Europe and beyond,” Von Mollendorff said.