A new floricane raspberry cultivar has been introduced by a horticultural research team from New Zealand and Canada.
Moutere was created in a planned breeding programme at The New Zealand Institute of Plant and Food Research.
The name is a Maori word meaning “island”, chosen because the cultivar was selected near the rural area and townships of Upper Moutere and Lower Moutere, next to Motueka.
No large-scale trials of Moutere have been conducted, but it performed well in British Columbia, Canada and in the Nelson region of New Zealand in small-sized research plots over several years.
The plus points include high yields of large, uniformly sized and bright red berries. The plant adapts well to a wide range of environments and is a useful breeding parent for resistance to the Bushy Dwarf virus and the North American raspberry aphid.
The research team included Mark Joseph Stephens of Plant and Food Research, Chaim Kempler of the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre and Harvey K Hall of Shekinah Berries Ltd,
The new cultivar was featured in the American Society of Horticultural Science's journal HortScience.
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