Ohalo, a unique plant breeder specializing in what the company calls “boosted breeding,” announced March 10 the formation of the Ohalo Strawberry Consortium.
This consortium, consisting of some of the industry’s biggest names, such as California Giant Berry Farms, Naturipe Berry Growers, Wish Farms, Crown Nursery, BlazerWilkinsonGee, Central West Produce, and others, seeks to revolutionize strawberry breeding by making varieties available for the first time as true seed.
“We are thrilled to partner with these leading strawberry growers, packers, and marketers to bring more flavorful, sustainable, and economically valuable strawberry varieties to market as true seed in the years ahead,” said Dave Friedberg, CEO of Ohalo, in a news release. “With these partners, we can more quickly realize our vision of transforming the strawberry industry, benefiting farmers, retailers, consumers, and the planet.”
Seeds instead of runners
Strawberry plants are currently propagated in nurseries via runner shoots from mother plants, which are cut and replanted to create the strawberry plants that are planted in the field. Ohalo’s uniform strawberry seed would remove the need for vegetative propagation via runners, and would allow for nurseries to germinate field-ready strawberry transplants more quickly.
Breeding plants in order to get those runners for commercial plantings can take a great deal of time. Ohalo’s proprietary breeding system claims to have perfectly predictable outcomes for the plants, which would accelerate breeding processes and improve varieties.
According to Ohalo, this method will improve production economics for both nurseries and farmers by reducing cost, nursery production time, and pesticide use.
Broad availability
The consortium also aims to make its uniform hybrid seed available to the industry worldwide, ensuring that growers are not limited by farm size or location. This would buck the traditional system of closed breeding programs by allowing open access.
“For years, consumers have been begging for strawberries with more flavor all year long, retailers have been seeking more consistent fruit quality and better shelf life, and farmers have been struggling to maintain higher yields while dealing with disease pressure, mounting production costs, and labor shortages,” said Phil Stewart, a strawberry breeder who joined Ohalo after nearly two decades with Driscoll’s.
“These competing priorities have forced trade-offs, reducing flavor, shelf life, or yield to benefit other stakeholders. With our hybrid breeding system, we will quickly deliver radically improved strawberry varieties that offer better outcomes for the entire value chain.”
Field trials for the first varieties are expected to begin in 2026.
