New fruit trees with agro-export potential in Chile

To learn more details about the research, Portalfruticola.com spoke with the INIA Quilamapu researcher and project coordinator, Jorge Retamal, who explained that the project arises because the producers in the Ñuble area are having a lot of problems, due to the low profitability of orchards. “In the region we have the largest area of blueberries and there are a large number of producers with the fruit in production, with 40% of the total regional area. And the blueberry is the fruit tree that has had the highest rate of surface area decrease. In this way we seek to ensure that producers have alternatives to diversify their productive matrix. In addition, new species must be resilient to climate change,” said Retamal. One of the fruit trees that is being researched is the macadamia. In this regard, the researcher commented that there are varieties that are not tolerant to cold. “40 years ago we introduced these species in seeds, which brought great genetic variability and ...