Churriana's guardians of the strawberry

The Banco de Germoplasma de Fresa de Málaga (Malaga strawberry germplasm bank) houses a collection of incalculable value, unique in Europe. Some of its pieces date back two centuries while others have been added over the years to make it an international reference in the genetic improvement of this fruit.

Its "somewhat romantic" origin dates back to the 18th century, when the crossing of two wild varieties by a gardener in the Palace of Versailles gave rise to the 'fragaria ananassa', a cultivated strawberry from which the varieties that are eaten today have been developed. This is how José Sánchez Sevilla, a researcher at the Andalusian Institute for Agricultural, Fisheries, Food and Ecological Production Research and Training (IFAPA), explains it from the headquarters which has been in Churriana since 1928.

Away from the urban environment on a 22-hectare farm located in the Santa Cruz area of Churriana, research and experimentation projects are being carried out with the aim of bringing the results to the sector. "They do not remain in a laboratory or in specialised journals where only scientists have access. We work for and with the public sector, to meet their needs and demands," stressed its director, Paloma Ruiz de Molina.

At present, this seed bank conserves some 400 varieties of cultivated strawberry, to which are added as many accessions of wild material from different parts of the world, "in addition to other materials that are crossbred and experimental until there are over a thousand entries", says Sánchez Sevilla, who points out that after Oregon (USA), which has the largest strawberry germplasm bank in the world, Malaga is the next. "There is also the one in Dresden (Germany), which is a benchmark because it has the largest collection of wild strawberries, but they are not cultivated like those of the IFAPA".

In Malaga work is being carried out to improve the fruit in the face of ever-increasing production so that its qualities are not lost, the strawberries are healthier and the desired colour can be obtained. "All this by carrying out genetic mapping and looking for the characteristics that are needed", Ruiz de Molina, who has been in charge of IFAPA Malaga for the last year and a half, explained.

Furthermore, research is also being carried out into "classic" improvement in which the sustainability of the crop is sought, with varieties through crosses that achieve plants that are more resistant to water stress and pathogens, and that need less fungicides or pesticides through hydroponic crops, for example. "All this without forgetting the need for alternatives to chemical soil disinfection, because it is already being banned in the European Union," says this agricultural engineer from Madrid, who also has a degree in Environmental Sciences and has been living in Malaga for 19 years.

Ruiz de Molina insists that the germplasm bank is above all a "working tool; it is not a museum". He added, "The varieties we conserve are not collector's items to be kept for the pleasure of having something old, but because they are useful and we share them with other research centres so that they can also cross them and obtain new varieties".

This conservation is possible thanks to their maintenance 'in vivo', with three replicas of the same individual in pots strategically placed in large greenhouses, and also 'in vitro', at four degrees and in absolute darkness to prevent pests and epidemics. Moreover, these conditions guarantee that the material is in a perfect state of health and preserve the integrity of the collection. "Nevertheless, we periodically carry out controls to check that there have been no alterations in the genetic stability of the varieties", Sánchez Sevilla explained.

In Spain, the first varieties to be developed by a public body were grown in Malaga, "but now it is no longer necessary to carry out this improvement, because there are private companies that do it. Precisely, our role is to collaborate with them to teach them the necessary techniques - molecular, for example - to achieve this. Our priority is to continue developing new materials from the wild species, which are of higher quality and consume less water, so that we can then provide them to the companies so that they can develop their varieties", explains the researcher.

Initially, the studies focused on improving the strawberry's hardness, because its shelf life was very short, just two weeks. "At the beginning, we were looking for a strawberry that was hard and also productive, in other words, one that would be profitable for the farmer. But the production objectives, both in terms of grams per plant and fruit size, have already been achieved at a sufficient level, so now we are looking for other quality milestones related to fruit colour, flavour and aroma. In addition, with the water problems, we are also working on achieving a competitive and profitable crop with less water consumption", Sánchez Sevilla emphasises.

But why, given that Huelva is the largest strawberry producer, is the leading research centre for this crop located in Malaga? We have to go back to the 1960s to find the origin of modern strawberry cultivation in Spain, when the researcher Dieter Wienberg, then director of La Mayora, introduced the most advanced techniques from California and developed them on the eastern coast of Malaga.

"The work of Dieter Wienberg and La Mayora was intense but short-lived. Strawberry cultivation in Torre del Mar, Caleta de Vélez, Algarrobo-Costa and El Morche continued until it disappeared in the mid-1970s due to the pressure of other intensive crops coming from the west of Almeria and, above all, due to the real estate boom for tourist use of the land on the eastern Costa del Sol", recalled José Manuel López Aranda, former IFAPA researcher in Málaga and promoter of the study of strawberries in this province.

"During those years the crops were divided between Huelva and Malaga, but in the end the soil conditions in Huelva (sandy, acidic and with more water) made it more competitive and the crop settled there definitively", Sánchez Sevilla added.

At that juncture there was a gap in the public work of technology transfer to farmers interested in strawberries, which was filled by the Servicio de Extensión Agraria (SEA) and its agencies on the Huelva coast. "With the arrival of the regional governments, between 1982 and 1983, the technical teams of the SEA and the scientific teams of the National Institute of Agricultural Research (INIA) were merged into a single body of the department of agriculture and fisheries of the Andalusian regional government, the directorate general of agricultural research and extension, with centres in all the provinces in Andalucía (called CIDA). In all except Huelva", he specified.

It was in this context that López Aranda was assigned in 1986 to the CIDA in Malaga, which would later become the current IFAPA, with two headquarters: in Churriana and Campanillas. "But was it legitimate for a team from a research centre to devote itself to a speciality developed in another province?", asked López Aranda, who confesses that once he had made the decision to work in strawberry "I always had all the support I needed".

At that time, the strawberry sector was growing in Spain, both in terms of fruit production and nursery plant production, but with the handicap that Huelva, which provided more than 95% of the production, was limited to growing a single foreign variety, coming from the University of California, to which royalties were paid for each of these plants. "In 1991, we thought it would be appropriate to venture into the impressive world of growing new varieties", recalls López Aranda.

So work began on new formulas and to encourage producers to carry out their own programmes. "At the moment, the market is very distributed and the variety that can monopolise the most is 10 or 15% of the market. There is no variety that has a predominant position like 'Camarosa' had two decades ago. In the 2023-24 season, 18 varieties had more than 0ne per cent of plants planted in Huelva, with 'Marisma', from the company Fresas Nuevos Materiales, having the most with 10.7%. It is followed by 'Fortuna' (10.5%) and Rociera (10.1%).

A total of 72 people (researchers, technical and administrative staff) work in this regional body, divided into different research groups: the tissue culture and biotechnology group (with a project to improve the profitability of pistachio cultivation and another on biotechnological tools applied to the improvement of custard apples); the in vitro group; the agricultural entomology group (with a project on the study of the effect of ecological infrastructures on the natural enemies of pests inside and outside greenhouses and another on integrated pest management in subtropical crops); the phytopathology group (a study on the adaptation of Andalusian viticulture to new eco-climatic and consumption scenarios, another on natural and induced resistance against emerging viruses in cucurbit and solanaceous crops, and the last on the performance of agronomic value tests for the registration of varieties), and the agricultural ecophysiology group (with projects on actions to achieve the sustainability of avocado cultivation on the Andalusian coast in view of the scarcity of water and diseases affecting it). All of these are in addition to the strawberry plant breeding and biotechnology group.

In addition, the IFAPA in Malaga, with a total budget of 771,564.90 euros, has a second 20-hectare site, located at Finca la Lira (Campanillas), which has been more oriented towards training since it was founded in 1968 as an agricultural training school. From there, specialised training projects are currently coordinated, linked to the tropical fruit, citrus, nuts, irrigation and ecological production sectors, as well as institutional training in pesticides, animal welfare and incorporation into the agricultural business.