Minister of Agriculture and Food Canada Marie-Claude Bebo during her working visit to the country, while in the Okanagan region, announced investments in new varieties of apples and cherries.

The Minister noted that the provinces of British Columbia and Ontario will be allocated $ 4.2 million for the cultivation of more profitable fruit varieties of trees.

As part of this initiative, Summerland research teams, together with the American Wayland Research and Innovation Center, will begin modernization of breeding methods. According to the head of the research program, Erich Wallich, new methods will help determine even before the first flowering of the tree, whether the apple tree can bear fruit. Modern computer technologies will also be developed that will quickly and accurately identify from thousands of genotypes those that are the most promising for the selection of various tree varieties.

The result of the work will be an increase in the number of new varieties of fruit trees with the potential for transformation into the industry, not only apples, but also cherries.

In addition, issues of optimizing harvest time, long-term storage and consumer choice will be studied.

Between 2011 and 2016, the area under fruit trees in the Okanagan region increased by 6%, and production - by 10%.