Breeding for success in indoor vegetable production

Here's how two leading breeders are tackling these challenges.

Flavor and Nutrition Are Essential

Tracy Lee, CEA Lead for Sakata, says the company has developed a multi-pronged approach when it comes to developing new varieties specific to greenhouse production.

"We are working with our Sakata sister company breeders of relevant crops on the testing and development of varieties that may already be used in other worldwide locations to evaluate their applicability here," Lee says. "In addition, we have partnered with U.S. vertical farming testing ground Willo in the evaluation and collection of data for pre-commercial varieties. Our breeders are also beginning to screen germplasm to determine if there are any breeding projects in key leaf crops that will be beneficial specifically for the indoor market."

When it comes to the traits breeders look for in greenhouse vegetables that might differ from field varieties, Lee notes that flavor and nutritional profiles are even more of a focus in this segment.

"There is less focus on field-borne disease resistances or seasonal, slot-specific location adaptability," Lee says. "Traits like enhanced leaf shapes, textures, or postharvest holding are also a focus."

Moving forward, there continues to be an increase in indoor production, although it's not necessarily a 1-to-1 shift away from the field, Lee says.

"The trend is on continued growth while maintaining a smaller but still significant and formidable footprint within traditional agriculture production methods," Lee says.

Timing for Maturity

Greenhouse vegetable growers want to maximize the return on every unit area (square foot), so marketable yield is important, and timing harvest with demand from the downstream chain is also important.

"For greenhouses, we breed for plants that are of the indeterminate type, meaning they will grow, set some flowers, produce fruit, and repeat again for up to 10 months of the year," says Mourad Abdennadher, Head of Americas' Vegetable Breeding & Testing at Vegetables by Bayer. "We also focus on early and late maturities because growers want to produce more crops that fill slots where retailers may not have produce coming in from the open field."

When it comes to the traits that might differ in breeding varieties for open field versus indoor production, the number of fruits per plant and timing of harvests are very important.

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Source: Greenhouse Grower