The Glen Lyon raspberry, the most settled and oldest raspberry grown in the Huelva fields, is about to be replaced. The Eurosemillas company already has a different variety in the market, which will replace the Glen Lyon variety in the coming years as producers become aware of the multiple advantages it offers them.
This new variety is called the Glen Rocio. It is a Floricane raspberry that the company from Cordoba obtained in an improvement program in Scotland, and that has had a great acceptance within Huelva's berry sector in its second commercial year.
The Glen Rocío variety has a bigger production yield per surface than the rest of the floricanes varieties, and a more stable production throughout the harvest.
According to Lina Feria, an agricultural engineer at Eurosemillas, the Glen Rocio fruit "has a conical shape, and its size remains large until the end of the campaign. It is consistent and its red intense coloration doesn't become darker."
The Glen Rocio variety has a great taste and an excellent shelf life. According to marketers, "it has a long post-harvest life and does not show bleeding at destination."
The plant has "an erect bearing, with a high percentage of emission of long lateral buds," stated Lina Feria.
The introduction of this new variety in Huelva's berry sector is turning out well, mainly because "it has been selected by the province's improvement program because producers can continue to use the same low cost agronomic practices they have been carrying out."
One of the farmers in Huelva that is testing this new variety is Jose Mora, who, based on the results he has obtained so far, wants to increase the area of Glen Rocio for the next season.
Mora, who sells his raspberry production under the DMJ Fres brand, obtains about 350,000 kilos of raspberries each season that he mainly sells to the European market (mainly to England, which has bought almost 60% of the total for 30 years) and to the national market, although in a smaller proportion.
The entrepreneur said he had decided to replace this crop with raspberries because they were more profitable. "The yields and profits obtained in one hectare of raspberries are equivalent to what you achieve in more than 4 hectares of strawberries," he said.
Source: agrodiariohuelva.es