Interesting article in this morning’s Washington Post about Harry Swartz, a Cornell grad at the University of Maryland who’s breeding ‘better’ strawberries, specificially ones that can be harvested mechanically.
It sounds like Swartz hasn’t forgotten about taste. But like a flower-breeder looking for that rare sport that’s going to make a mint, Swartz found his in Spain — and it had nothing to do with flavor:
One day, while slogging through a field of 12,000 plants in Spain, still recovering from a bottle of wine the night before, mind numb at the end of the day, he stopped. He did a double take: He was looking at the perfect plant. All the berries were ripe at the same time, and it had single leaves rather than clusters.
He spirited the plant away and is now working on commercializing it.
Swartz’s company, Five Aces Breeding, is the privatized version of the university’s small fruit program. … “You can’t make five aces without a wild card,” he said. “We use wild species — that’s our wild card.”
Sounds like a guy who really thinks on his feet! Using wild plants is probably the best way to start anyhow, due to natural hardiness(among other things)…cool.