b1-66er: How many sub-species of strawberry do we eat in the American West, do you know?
For sure there are 2 different ones I can discern.
b1-67er: There are a lot. There is a consortium of companies that is constantly searching for interesting new variants in their fields. They'll transplant and propagate like 1000 of them a year. They grow them, evaluate their characteristics and cull the varieties down to maybe 100 the next year.
Then they will evaluate again and
cull down to maybe ten. Repeat. The best two or three they will introduce into limited production.
It's an ongoing process that takes 3 years for a variety.
They are looking for taste, fruit size, fruit number, frost resistance, heat resistance, pest resistance, fungus resistance, fruit durability, etc.
Different varieties work in different regions.
They also grow some different varieties for jam that have more tooth.
66: Super interesting.
67: I have an unusually detailed view on strawberry genetics because Nash was quoting a machine to sort strawberry plants for that consortium.
66: Thank you. Maybe you should ask them to quote a machine on EVERYTHING...
67: Working on it.
