Tropical fruits
Cooltropics® winter-hardy passion fruit: Progress and outlook for breeding Passiflora incarnata
Winter-hardy passion fruit that reliably flowers and fruits even in Central Europe – for a long time, this was considered a horticultural dream. However, Passiflora incarnata, originally native to North American regions with a pronounced continental climate and adapted to very hot summers and cold winters, has precisely the robustness needed for successful cultivation in Central Europe. In the Lubera breeding programme, we are working to adapt this robust wild species to the conditions of...
Read moreWhere will the Passiflora range be in five years
Winter hardy passion fruit is a novelty on the market for edible fruit plants. Thanks to Lubera's own breeding programme, Lubera Edibles is definitely a pioneer in this field.
The passion fruit range at Lubera Edibles currently consists of two varieties: Cooltropics® Eia Popeia® and Cooltropics® Snowstar®. There is strong demand for both varieties and the Snowstar® variety was awarded the gold medal for Best New Plant at the French Innovert competition in spring 2024. However...
Read moreCamellia sinensis Fresh-T®: the new tea plant varieties from Lubera Edibles
Lubera Edibles now offers three different tea plant varieties (Camellia sinensis) as young plants. Can tea be cultivated and produced in Central Europe? What conditions need to be considered? How hardy are the new Fresh-T varieties? We try to answer these questions in the following article.
Read moreCurrent breeding projects in Buchs - impressions of a photographer
How can you, I thought. But Markus " Merciless" Kobelt didn't let up: Yes, exactly, to invest 1-2 days with a photo shoot in the hottest August of all times (?) on the current breeding fields in Buchs, that was his latest job to me. Now I do like to take photos. But I prefer slightly overcast skies - of course just so that the photos turn out as good as possible, certainly not because of me... But what did I notice during the photo safari, armed with the camera and with the eyes of...
Read moreHardy Cooltropics® passion fruit: a new fruit variety and climber for the garden
Newly available from Lubera Edibles are two hardy passion fruits: Cooltropics® Eia Popeia® and Cooltropic® Snowstar®. In the next few years, the Cooltropics® series will be expanded with many new varieties from the Lubera breeding programme. This is reason enough to ask Lubera breeder, Raphael Maier, for a presentation and classification of the new fruit variety for the northern garden. How exactly do hardy passion fruits work, how can they be produced and propagated and when is the ideal time...
Read moreBreeding of field-grown melons
An outdoor melon? Another new breeding programme? Yes, this year Lubera has started breeding melons, more precisely honeydew outdoor melons for Central Europe. Lubera has already bred some exotic crops: you can already order peanuts, sweet potatoes or passion fruit in the Lubera Garden Shop, but now outdoor melons? Do they even grow here?
It's not that far-fetched to grow outdoor melons in Germany, Austria or Switzerland. If you look in old variety catalogues, you will be surprised to...
Read moreBreeding hardy passion fruit
Have you ever heard of hardy passion fruit? Probably not. When you think of passion fruit, you tend to think of truly tropical fruits from South America. And that is true. The passion fruits of the species Passiflora edulis available in supermarkets are tropical plants, just like the majority of the more than 600 species of the genus Passiflora.
The plants of the genus Passiflora are also called passion flowers and over 100 species of them produce edible fruits. These fruits are very different...
Read moreCitrus plant production with Switrus® and Citrobella® young plants
The incredible diversity of the different Citrus species and the sheer endless number of varieties are simply impressive. From the original Citrus species C. aurantifolia (limes), C. maxima (grapefruit), C. medica (citron), C. reticulata (mandarin orange), the species and varieties known today have developed over several generations of mankind. Most people who hear the name 'citrus' may first think of the lemons and oranges that we know mainly from the winter months.
From now on, we want to make...
Read moreLubera® Citrobella® - the simple citrus assortment for container cultivation – robust, but not hardy
In addition to the hardy lemons, we have also decided to include non-hardy but nevertheless cold-tolerant lemon varieties or species in the range. These lemons are cultivated in the home garden as classic container plants and require a cool but frost-free and bright location for overwintering, as they are also evergreen plants. As already described at the beginning, these varieties/species also have a certain tolerance to slightly negative temperatures. For the hobby gardener, this means that...
Read moreSwitrus® – The hardy citrus young plants!
There is hardly any other plant that reflects the Mediterranean attitude to life as strongly as the lemon and citrus plants in general. Just think of the Amalfi lemons that grow along the Italian coast of the same name. If you also want to enjoy lemon plants north of the Alps, you have few options. On the one hand, you have to visit a botanical garden or grow your own container plants in your garden, with all the burdens and worries that it entails. For example, the correct and frost-free...
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