How do I put together my berry assortment?

Hopefully they are on holiday. Or even better, enjoy the fact that everyone else is on holiday. But once again, every plant producer is wondering which berry plants, varieties and assortments to choose for next spring. Because soon the young plants will have to be ordered. At Lubera Edibles, too, young plant production is controlled according to the order history and incoming orders. Later in winter or spring, you then have to take what is still available.

The standard berry and its alternatives

The 2 to 3 litre pot, tall and usually square, has become the standard in berry plant production. If you wander through the garden centres in the spring and analyse the offers with a gardener's eye, all you see is always the same: almost the same pot, with a slightly different but always large label, nota bene with as little information as possible. It is a well-known fact that customers cannot read. At least that's what our advertising consultants seem to think. Garden centres are no better. I...

Real-time plant breeding – a breeding tour in April

Plant breeding in April 2022: at Lubera’s field for plant breeding trials in Buchs, Switzerland in early April. You will look in vain for laboratories and white coats. Practical plant breeding takes place first of all in the field, then in the greenhouse; thirdly via researching and evaluating on the computer and only then perhaps in the laboratory. On a Sunday afternoon (when else?), I set off on a tour of our Lubera breeding field in Buchs. What do I notice? What is the latest news? What...

Confi® berries – new jostaberry that we need!

The horticultural or breeding vision of combining blackcurrants with gooseberries has existed since the end of the 19th century. The aim of these first crossing attempts was to combine the fruitiness and fruit size of gooseberries with the aroma of blackcurrants. In addition, this new fruit variety was also to have tolerance to American gooseberry powdery mildew.  However, these first attempts were not successful...

The Lubera® breeders were by no means the first to work on jostaberries. In the...

Lubera Edibles Podcast #05: Cassissima® und Confi® berries – why black is the new fruit colour...

Blueberries everywhere, strawberries all year round and the health values of raspberries and blackberries are the talk of the town. To give just one example: there are significantly more blueberries sold in the home garden market today than currants (all colours and shapes) and gooseberries combined. What happens to the specialties? Do they still belong in the assortment? Can one continue to breed them? Markus Kobelt and Frederik Vollert discuss these questions in this podcast: why black is the...