Breeding the kiwifruit of the future培育未來的獼猴桃

Breeding the kiwifruit of the future培育未來的獼猴桃

It’s a long game developing the kiwifruit of the future – up to 25 years from concept to shop shelf.培育未來獼猴桃是一個(gè)漫長(zhǎng)的過程——從概念到上架，可能需要長(zhǎng)達(dá)25年的時(shí)間。

▲Research technologist, Megan Wood, in the sensory lab where she analyses kiwifruit bred at the Kiwifruit Breeding Centre

Thousands and thousands of kiwifruit pass between the gloved fingers of research technologist Megan Wood, and she reaches for them just as a consumer might.
“Essentially, I just feel them, and I think I would eat that one.

“We’ve been doing it for years, so my best guess is usually pretty good.”
成千上萬的獼猴桃在研究技術(shù)員梅根·伍德戴手套的手指間穿梭，她像消費(fèi)者一樣伸手去拿。
“基本上，我就是能感覺到它們，而且我覺得我會(huì)吃那只。”。
“我們做這個(gè)已經(jīng)很多年了，所以我猜的通常都很準(zhǔn)。”

She’s a dab hand at analysing the fruit inside and out, working in the sensory lab at the Kiwifruit Breeding Centre (KBC) in Te Puke where the focus is on developing the kiwifruit of the future.

But that first gut feel is followed by a thorough analysis of every bit of the fruit, followed by taste tests and off-site examinations for nutritional benefits.

她是分析水果內(nèi)外特性的行家，在位于特普克的獼猴桃育種中心（KBC）的感官實(shí)驗(yàn)室工作，該實(shí)驗(yàn)室的重點(diǎn)是開發(fā)未來的獼猴桃品種。
但最初的直覺之后，是對(duì)水果的每一部分進(jìn)行徹底分析，然后進(jìn)行口味測(cè)試和異地檢查，以確定其營(yíng)養(yǎng)價(jià)值。

▲Probing a sample for firmness in the sensory lab

A kiwifruit may have too big a knobbly bit on its bottom – “We have had people in the past crack a tooth on it”; and cavities – “If the cavity is too big, too many critters will live in there, and we can’t export it.”

Then there are other features like shape, colour and sugar levels to grade and record.

Established in 2021, the KBC’s Te Puke site is the headquarters for growing and testing new kiwifruit cultivars.

獼猴桃底部可能有一個(gè)太大的硬塊——“我們過去有人因此磕壞了牙”；還有空洞——“如果空洞太大，就會(huì)有太多蟲子住進(jìn)去，我們就不能出口了?！?br /> 此外，還有其他特征，如形狀、顏色和糖分含量，也需要進(jìn)行分級(jí)和記錄。
成立于2021年的KBC的Te Puke基地，是培育和測(cè)試新獼猴桃品種的總部。

Kiwifruit is New Zealand’s largest horticultural export, worth $3.9 billion in the year ended June 2025, following 2024’s record crop.

KBC – which also has trial orchards in Kerikeri, Motueka, Gisborne and Italy – is a joint venture between Zespri and Plant and Food Research, now part of the Bioeconomy Science Institute.

It’s led by chief executive Matt Glenn.

獼猴桃是新西蘭最大的園藝出口產(chǎn)品，在2024年創(chuàng)紀(jì)錄收成后，截至2025年6月的一年里，其出口額達(dá)到39億美元。
KBC是佳沛（Zespri）與新西蘭植物與食品研究所（現(xiàn)為生物經(jīng)濟(jì)科學(xué)研究所的一部分）的合資企業(yè)，該公司在凱里凱里（Kerikeri）、莫圖依卡（Motueka）、吉斯伯恩（Gisborne）和意大利均設(shè)有試驗(yàn)果園。
該團(tuán)隊(duì)由首席執(zhí)行官馬特·格倫領(lǐng)導(dǎo)。

▲The Kiwifruit Breeding Centre is careful to maintain security around its trials

“We’re sort of the grease in the wheels between the researchers in the laboratory and Zespri, who are the commercialisation partner, and that’s really why we set up the joint venture as well, because we can focus really on deploying the technology, implementing it, and then driving it through to a commercial outcome.”

“我們就像是實(shí)驗(yàn)室研究人員和商業(yè)化合作伙伴Zespri之間的潤(rùn)滑劑，這也是我們成立合資企業(yè)的真正原因，因?yàn)槲覀兛梢哉嬲龑Ｗ⒂诓渴鸺夹g(shù)、實(shí)施技術(shù)，然后將其推向商業(yè)成果?！?/p>

And that process is a lengthy one – it can take up to 25 years from the initial idea to actual fruit on the shelf.

Glenn said they start with a “concept” requested by Zespri and from there develop “elite parents” from raw germplasm originating in Sichuan, China, a process which takes four or five years.

It takes another five years for seedlings to grow and produce the required fruit at KBC’s orchards around the country.

“Out of those 30 or 40,000 that we plant as seedlings every year, there’s probably about two or 300 that go into the next stage, which is the clonal commercial testing.”

That can take another five years.

“我們就像是實(shí)驗(yàn)室研究人員與商業(yè)化合作伙伴佳沛之間的潤(rùn)滑劑，這也是我們成立合資企業(yè)的真正原因，因?yàn)槲覀兛梢哉嬲龑Ｗ⒂诓渴鸺夹g(shù)、實(shí)施技術(shù)，并推動(dòng)其取得商業(yè)成果?！?br /> 而這一過程相當(dāng)漫長(zhǎng)——從最初的想法到貨架上的實(shí)際產(chǎn)品，可能需要長(zhǎng)達(dá)25年的時(shí)間。
格倫（Glenn）說，他們從佳沛（Zespri）要求的“概念”出發(fā)，然后從源自中國(guó)四川的原始種質(zhì)資源中培育出“優(yōu)良親本”，這一過程需要四到五年時(shí)間。
在KBC遍布全國(guó)的果園里，樹苗還需再長(zhǎng)五年才能結(jié)出所需的果實(shí)。
“在我們每年種植的3萬到4萬株幼苗中，可能只有大約200到300株能進(jìn)入下一階段，即無性繁殖商業(yè)測(cè)試。”
這可能還需要五年時(shí)間。

▲Scientist and breeding co-ordinator Amar Nath in one of the trial orchards at the Kiwifruit Breeding Centre Photo: Supplied / RNZ / Sally Round

“After 15 years, we might go back to Zespri and say, ‘hey, do you remember 15 years ago you said you’d like a kiwifruit that look like this? Well, we think here are some candidates’, and we present them to the Zespri board, and they go … ‘they look pretty good, we think we’d like to have a bet on those’, because it’s quite a big bet they’re making at that stage.”

They then put them into the hands of the growers and grow them at hectare scale, before getting the fruit to market and saying “yeah, that’s a winner, we’re going to commercialise it”.

The Te Puke headquarters has 40 hectares of trial orchards as well as laboratories and a cool store which tests the harvested fruit’s resilience at the handling and storage stage.

“15年后，我們可能會(huì)回到佳沛公司，說，‘嘿，你還記得15年前你說過你想要一個(gè)看起來像這樣的獼猴桃嗎？好吧，我們認(rèn)為這里有一些候選品種’，然后我們把它們展示給佳沛董事會(huì)，他們說……‘它們看起來很不錯(cuò)，我們想在這些品種上下注’，因?yàn)樵谶@個(gè)階段，他們下的賭注相當(dāng)大?！?br /> 然后，他們將這些種子交給種植者，讓他們?cè)诠曇?guī)模上進(jìn)行種植，之后將果實(shí)推向市場(chǎng)，并說“是的，這是一個(gè)成功的品種，我們要將其商業(yè)化”。
特普克（Te Puke）總部擁有40公頃的試驗(yàn)果園以及實(shí)驗(yàn)室和冷藏庫(kù)，用于測(cè)試收獲的水果在搬運(yùn)和儲(chǔ)存階段的耐受力。

Breeding for a future climate
Aside from improvements to existing varieties, KBC is also developing cultivars which will be able to cope with the changing climate, and its 30ha orchard in Kerikeri in Northland is an important testing ground, Glenn told Country Life.

為未來氣候進(jìn)行育種
除了對(duì)現(xiàn)有品種進(jìn)行改良外，KBC還在開發(fā)能夠適應(yīng)氣候變化的栽培品種，其位于北島凱里凱里的30公頃果園是一個(gè)重要的試驗(yàn)場(chǎng)，格倫向《鄉(xiāng)村生活》雜志介紹道。

▲The KBC’s cool store where kiwifruit are graded and chilled.

“The modelling that we’re seeing is telling us that the climate in the Bay of Plenty, where 80 percent of kiwifruit are grown, will be like Northland by about 2050, 2060.

“We have put [the cultivars] under that pressure, that evolutionary pressure, effectively of warmer, wetter temperatures than we get down here in the Bay … so by the time the Bay looks like that we know that we will have cultivars that will work successfully down here.”

Increasing intense weather events are also considered in the breeding programme, with a trial orchard in Italy which is breeding new root stocks to deal with very wet heavy soils.

“At the same time, we’re going to have areas, that are going to have soils that are salinating, or soils that are very dry, so we’ve actually got to be looking at every extreme in just about everything that we do.”

Glenn said successful fruit pass tests in three different areas – they have all the things a consumer wants, good yield and resilience for the grower and are supply chain ready.

“We’ve got to make sure that the fruit don’t have spikes on them that so they [don’t] puncture other fruit as they go through the process, got to make sure that they’re really hardy, so you can pick them while they’re quite firm, but then they’ll go through the supply chain really well.

“我們看到的模型預(yù)測(cè)，到2050年、2060年左右，獼猴桃種植面積占80%的豐盛灣的氣候?qū)⑴c北島相似。
“我們已經(jīng)讓（這些品種）承受了那種壓力，即比我們?cè)跒硡^(qū)這里更溫暖、更濕潤(rùn)的氣候條件所帶來的進(jìn)化壓力……因此，等到灣區(qū)氣候變得如此時(shí)，我們就知道會(huì)有一些品種能夠在這里成功生長(zhǎng)?！?br /> 育種計(jì)劃中也考慮了日益加劇的極端天氣事件，意大利的一個(gè)試驗(yàn)果園正在培育新的砧木，以應(yīng)對(duì)非常潮濕且沉重的土壤。
“與此同時(shí)，我們還將面臨一些地區(qū)，那里的土壤正在鹽堿化，或者土壤非常干燥，因此，在我們所做的幾乎每一件事上，都必須考慮到每一種極端情況?！?br /> 格倫表示，成功的水果品種需在三個(gè)不同方面通過測(cè)試——它們要具備消費(fèi)者想要的所有特質(zhì)，對(duì)種植者來說要有良好的產(chǎn)量和抗逆性，并且要準(zhǔn)備好進(jìn)入供應(yīng)鏈。
“我們必須確保水果表面沒有尖刺，以免在加工過程中刺破其他水果。同時(shí)，還要確保它們非常耐寒，這樣你就可以在它們還相當(dāng)堅(jiān)硬的時(shí)候采摘，然后它們就能很好地通過供應(yīng)鏈。

▲The KBC’s cool store where kiwifruit are graded and chilled.

“If any one of those three things is missing, the likelihood is that the fruit won’t be successful.”

Glenn said they were also working on developing a green kiwifruit “that may not need some of the chemical inputs that the farmers use traditionally”.

Speeding up the process
Artificial intelligence and precision breeding, also known as gene editing, could help speed up the lengthy process, Glenn said.

AI will help in decision-making with the large amount of data they collect but “you’ve still got to ground truth all the things that you do, so you’ve got to put seeds in the ground and grow them, and look at the fruit, and look at multiple fruit, and see if that’s really going to be sustainable”.

“如果缺少這三樣中的任何一樣，那么這款水果（或產(chǎn)品）成功的可能性就不大了。”
格倫（Glenn）說，他們還在努力培育一種綠色獼猴桃，“這種獼猴桃可能不需要農(nóng)民傳統(tǒng)上使用的一些化學(xué)投入品”。
加快進(jìn)程
格倫（Glenn）表示，人工智能和精準(zhǔn)育種（亦稱基因編輯）有助于加快這一漫長(zhǎng)過程。
人工智能將利用其收集的大量數(shù)據(jù)輔助決策，但“你仍需對(duì)你所做的一切進(jìn)行實(shí)地驗(yàn)證，因此，你需要播下種子，讓它們生長(zhǎng)，觀察果實(shí)，并觀察多個(gè)果實(shí)，以判斷這是否真的具有可持續(xù)性”。

▲Kiwifruit samples from a particular vine ready for analysis

“What we’re particularly interested in is the precision breeding. Some people call it gene editing, but we call it precision breeding, where you’re making really small base pair level changes.

“You’re not introducing any DNA, and you might be just up-regulating or down-regulating particular genes within the genome, so what you’re doing is you’re maximising the potential of the genetics that are already in the plant.”

But he said they can’t use the technology, being used in contained greenhouses and labs at the moment, until there’s a change in legislation.

“We just think we need to be a bit more sophisticated than we’ve been over the last 30 years of having a really blunt legal instrument to deal with new technologies that are going to really help us advance the industry.”

“我們特別感興趣的是精準(zhǔn)育種。有些人稱之為基因編輯，但我們稱之為精準(zhǔn)育種，即進(jìn)行非常小的堿基對(duì)級(jí)別的改變。
“你并未引入任何DNA，只是上調(diào)或下調(diào)基因組中的特定基因，因此你所做的就是最大限度地發(fā)揮植物本身遺傳物質(zhì)的潛力?！?br /> 但他表示，在相關(guān)法規(guī)發(fā)生變化之前，他們無法使用目前僅在封閉式溫室和實(shí)驗(yàn)室中使用的這項(xiàng)技術(shù)。
“我們認(rèn)為，在過去的30年里，我們一直使用一種非常生硬的法律工具來處理那些真正有助于我們推動(dòng)行業(yè)發(fā)展的新技術(shù)，現(xiàn)在我們需要更精細(xì)一些?！?/p>