Breeding
The long road to self-fertile berry varieties – using the example of Mayberries/Firstberries® and golden currants/Fourberries®
Contrary to popular belief, most plants (at least in an undomesticated state) are not self-fertile, i.e. they cannot fertilise themselves, but normally need a cross-pollinator, another variety of the same species. For cultivated plants or for plants that are to become cultivated plants, self-fertility is certainly a desirable characteristic. In this article, Markus Kobelt shows how Lubera® breeding attempts to obtain self-fertile varieties in Ribes aureum fruit varieties and in Lonicera...
Read moreCassissima® blackcurrants as plant of the year 2026
Lubera and Lubera Edibles are making 2026 the year of blackcurrants, more precisely the year of our Cassissima® new varieties. For this purpose, the Cassissima® varieties from Lubera® will be specially promoted and highlighted in the consumer market and also BtoB (Taspo, Gabot) in 2026. What are the main reasons for this step, for the promotion of such Cinderella fruits? And is there even a market for them? How important are blackcurrants in the berry plant market and what are the...
Read moreGold Medal for our variety introduction Passiflora Cooltropics® Snowstar®
The ‘Innovert Competition’ is held in France every year. This is where companies present their best new variety introductions in horticulture. Together with our French partner, Travers Nurseries, we submitted the white-flowering passionflower Cooltropics® Snowstar® this year. The variety comes from our own breeding programme for hardy passion fruit and was launched on the market this year.
We were delighted when the winners were announced and Snowstar® stood at the top of the podium and won...
Read moreBreeding progress in one picture
What are the benefits of new varieties? What is the difference between the new varieties? Is it worth cultivating new raspberry varieties? These are the questions we often hear. But instead of talking until we are blue in the face, we'll simply show you a picture:
Picture: ‘Heritage’ (1969) vs. ‘Grand Heritage’ (2024)
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 moreBreeding progress – for what?
Why and for what does progress in breeding need to be made in plants for the home garden, especially in edible plants? Is there any advancement at all – or is it just less or more reproduction of the old, old wine being sold in new bottles? And if there are improvements, what are they focussed on and how can we sell them? These are the questions I would like to answer in this article, using raspberries as an example.
Read moreWhy you shouldn't be fooled by the colour of the fruit? - The cassis evaluation 2024
This week (calendar week 26) it was that time again, when the blackcurrants – also known as 'cassis' in some regions – were ripe and ready to be evaluated. In addition to raspberries and rhubarb, blackcurrants have been among the crops that have to be assessed every year for several years now. Some readers will be wondering why this is the case. The answer is easy to find. Blackcurrants have much more to offer than the small, sour and tart fruits from grandma's garden...
Read moreVegetable breeding: breeding the outdoor tomato Open Sky Happy Black®
Tomatoes are a good example of how breeding vegetable varieties for the garden works. Breeding is actually easy, but it takes a lot of perseverance and above all continuity until you can finally bring a variety onto the market after six to ten years. In the following, I will briefly explain what is involved in our outdoor tomato breeding programme and how we specifically bred the Happy Black® variety.
Read moreBreeding as a pivotal point in the variety merry-go-round
In this short interview by Frederik Vollert, Lubera® breeder Raphael Maier talks about the latest developments, focal points and highlights in breeding, which mainly takes place in Buchs in the Swiss Rhine Valley.
Raphael Maier, what are the craziest breeding projects at Lubera® at the moment?
Well, of course I have the feeling that they are all a bit crazy. Probably the hardy passion fruits are already very extreme! Who would think of trying to establish the epitome of tropical fruit in cold...
Read moreSugarbeauties® – the new ornamental sweet potatoes from Lubera Edibles
When the Lubera® breeding team started breeding sweet potatoes a few years ago, the original and real focus was on improved, sweeter yielding varieties for hobby cultivation in the vegetable garden. During the selection work in the seedlings, however, we quickly noticed that the diversity in leaf colour and shape was quite large. Thus, it became clear relatively quickly that it was also worthwhile to select for these characteristics. This is what we did and we are just about to release the first...
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