In Te Puke, the Kiwifruit Breeding Centre is selecting and analysing new kiwifruit cultivars through sensory assessment, laboratory testing, and trial orchards. Research technologist Megan Wood examines fruit for external defects, internal quality, and market suitability. Assessments include shape, colour, sugar levels, cavity size, and physical resilience during post-harvest handling.
Established in 2021, the centre operates as a joint venture between Zespri and Plant and Food Research, now part of the Bioeconomy Science Institute. It runs trial orchards in Te Puke, Kerikeri, Motueka, Gisborne, and Italy. Chief executive Matt Glenn said the organisation connects laboratory research with Zespri's commercialisation pipeline. Development from initial concept to commercial release spans up to 25 years.
The breeding process begins with a concept request from Zespri. Glenn said they then develop elite parents from raw germplasm sourced from Sichuan, China, a process requiring four to five years. Seedlings are grown for another five years before selection. Out of 30,000 to 40,000 seedlings planted annually, about 200 to 300 enter clonal commercial testing, which lasts an additional five years. After 15 years, candidate cultivars are presented to Zespri for evaluation. Successful selections then move to grower-scale trials across several hectares before possible commercial release.
The Te Puke site has 40 hectares of trial orchards, laboratories, and a cool store for assessing storage performance. Climate adaptation is an increasing focus. At Kerikeri, a 30-hectare orchard tests cultivars under warmer and wetter conditions. Glenn said modelling suggests the Bay of Plenty could resemble Northland's climate by 2050 to 2060. Italian trials assess rootstocks suited to heavy, wet soils, while programmes also consider salinity and drought stress.
Successful cultivars must meet three criteria: Consumer acceptability, grower resilience, and supply chain performance. Glenn noted that fruit must avoid external features that cause mechanical damage, withstand firm picking, and maintain post-harvest stability. The centre is also researching green kiwifruit lines requiring reduced chemical inputs.
Artificial intelligence is expected to support decision-making by processing large data sets, but physical trials remain essential. Glenn said precision breeding, or gene editing, could accelerate development by adjusting gene expression without introducing external DNA. However, its use is pending legislative updates. He said, "We just think we need to be a bit more sophisticated than we've been over the last 30 years of having a really blunt legal instrument to deal with new technologies that are going to really help us advance the industry."
Source: RNZ News
