Better3Fruit

Combining conventional and innovative breeding

With 10.000 varieties entering the field every year, Better3Fruit runs one of the largest apple and pear breeding programs in the world. Better3Fruit combines for its breeding process age-old principles of crossing and selection with modern tools such as molecular markers that feed artificial intelligence computer models to predict crossing outcomes. B3F’s main product is currently the Kanzi apple, the second largest club variety in the world.

The apple of the future

The development of new varieties is carried out by manually pollinating thousands of blossoms every year. Ten to fifteen years later, after selection, only one or two trees remain, which form the basis for a new apple or pear variety, after which it takes another 5 years to market this new variety. In its breeding, Better3Fruit focuses not only on commercial properties, but also on improving the cultivation-technical properties and on better disease resistance. In this way, Better3Fruit can contribute to a higher value creation for the grower, as well as to a reduction in the use of crop protection products.