主要研究 今天

如果伊阿古·黑尔为所欲为的话, in a few years you may be topping your breakfast cereal with a handful of fresh kiwiberries you bought at your local farmer’s market. 没错，当地的猕猴桃. 在新英格兰北部.

Working to develop the fruit into a new high-value crop for New England farmers, 黑尔, 主要研究 assistant professor of specialty crop improvement and a plant breeder, 在主要研究的伍德曼农场种植了一英亩耐寒的几维鸟. The sweet, smooth-skinned, grape-sized cousin to New Zealand’s fuzzy fruit is
native to northern Asia and has been grown as an ornamental vine in the Northeast for more than a century.

“通过育种, my objective is to turn this edible landscaping plant into a vine that flourishes within a commercial production system,黑尔说.

Kiwiberries could be a winning crop for the small-scale, very diverse agriculture of the Northeast. “It’s a perennial species, which from a soil health perspective is a great advantage,” says 黑尔.  也, because the fruits have a relatively short storage life (up to six weeks, 相比之下，毛茸茸的猕猴桃只有6个月或更长时间。, global commodity-minded agricultural research enterprises have given kiwiberries a pass. “但在我们的地区, 降低储存能力是一种保险计划,他说, minimizing the risk that local producers will one day be undercut by imported kiwiberries from abroad.

+, 黑尔说, hardy kiwis taste wonderful — sweet with a tropical fruit complexity — and are packed with nutritional overachievers like vitamin C, β-胡萝卜素, 花青素和叶黄素.

在鼓励该州农民种植葡萄藤之前, 然而, 黑尔 is doing due diligence as befits 主要研究’s land-grant mission to bring vetted research to those who can use it.

在美国的资助下.S. Department of 农业 through the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station at 主要研究, he’s currently screening nearly 200 different varieties of kiwiberries, putting them through the same paces a potential commercial grower would to assess their economic viability.

“We trellis them, prune them, fertilize and irrigate them and observe, observe, observe. Over the seasons, we get a sense of which ones are promising and which are not,他说. “One vine may have great-tasting fruit, while another may tolerate late-spring frosts better. 这些信息为我们做十字架提供了依据.”

今年秋天, 在种植三年后, 最初的葡萄树只收获了少量猕猴桃. While it was far less than the 70-plus pounds of fruit each plant is expected to bear at full maturity, “it is enough for us to do some preliminary screening for fruit quality as well as some basic post-harvest studies,黑尔说. 他和威尔·黑斯廷斯16岁, 可持续农业和食品系统专业的学生, 我们会调查这些浆果是如何储存的, 处理和其他从农场到消费者的过程. 黑尔 describes their work as shifting the odds for success in the producer’s favor.

“我们知道繁殖是有效的，”他说，“但这需要时间. 我们面临的挑战是要聪明地应对, 使用所有可用的工具来加快这一进程, 驯服这种野生植物来生产一致性, 统一的浆果只需要几年，而不是几十年.”

然后是营销:“你需要消费者, 谁现在没有猕猴桃也活得很好, 去买它们. 有很多活动的部分.”

克服这些障碍, 然而, could do more than bring a new berry to the table: 黑尔 thinks the kiwiberry could stimulate economic activity across the state, 即使在新罕布什尔州的北部地区也是如此.

“这里有潜力形成一个全新的农业产业, one on par with the economic impact of strawberries and blueberries,黑尔说. “我们说的是数百万美元的收入、旅游业和就业机会. Through diversification like this, we may be able to enhance farm viability in the state. 这是我必须探索的潜力.”

最初发表于 主要研究杂志—2015年秋季刊