A tissue-culture propagation technology developed at The University of Queensland to grow hundreds of plants from a single cutting is set to bolster avocado production across Latin America to meet growing demand.
A team led by Professor Neena Mitter at UQ’s Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation developed the technology and it was licensed to the Chilean nursery Grupo Hijuelas by UniQuest, UQ’s commercialisation company.
UQ’s Dr Chris O’Brien said the technology would speed up the production of 4 key avocado rootstocks in the region.
“The propagation and tissue culture technology is a faster and cheaper way of producing clonal rootstocks, which have traditionally taken around 18 months to grow,” he said.
“An avocado tree’s rootstock influences its performance and using seedling rootstocks can lead to variable quality.
“This UQ technology means we can use clonal trees with the traits growers want, which means they can grow better crops.”
Dr O’Brien said the team will travel to Chile to demonstrate the technology later this year with the aim to boost Zutano, Velvick, Reed and Kidd avocado rootstock production.
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