UK: Vibrant wins ‘Best New Variety’

The new early season strawberry variety, ‘Vibrant’, has been awarded the accolade of the ‘Best New Variety – Edibles’ at the prestigious Grower of the Year Awards 2012. The awards were announced at a ceremony held at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London on 23rd February. Mr Seth Walpole, a member of the consortium of the UK licensed propagators of Vibrant, accepted the award on behalf of Meiosis.

The recipients of the Grower of the Year Awards are selected by an independent panel of judges and the event is widely recognised as a highlight in the UK horticultural calendar.

Bred by David Simpson and Adam Whitehouse at East Malling Research, Vibrant was trialled and commercially released by Meiosis Limited in 2011. Vibrant provides UK strawberry growers with an early season variety, that produces bold, large fruit of a uniformly conic shape with an excellent Class 1 percentage and good mid-red colour. Picking is one week ahead of Elsanta and has the potential to produce both 60-day and main crop Class 1 yields in excess of Elsanta. An unusual and useful characteristic of Vibrant is its ability to produce two crops of fruit in one season (double-cropping). Vibrant is suitable for all market outlets and is currently approved by Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda.

Robert England of Boxford Farms Ltd, who grew Vibrant in 2011 very sucessfully, commented that “Vibrant gives our business the potential to capitalise on an early market as well as a useful later flush of fruit. This will also help us compete in an increasingly competitive market whilst giving the customer an excellent fruit in both appearance and eating quality.”

Mark Coxeter, the CEO of Meiosis, commented that “Vibrant was a worthy winner of the award for ‘Best New Variety’. It’s a versatile variety that gives growers the opportunity to crop good quality fruit early in the season when the market is looking for home-produced strawberries, provides attractive harvest efficiencies and enables growers to take a second crop later in the season should they wish.”

For more information, please visit: www.meiosis.co.uk