Coordinated by the University of Málaga, GoodBerry focuses on strawberry, raspberry and black currant as model crop species and will study among others the adaptability of cultivars to different climatic conditions and the impact of these conditions on fruit quality. Global warming influences both the flowering system and the dormancy of the plants, and first adverse effects have already been observed in Germany over the last decade. By cultivating well established cultivars of the three species with varying adaption to diverse environments at different locations within Europe, the project design simulates the influence of climate change on berry cultivation. GoodBerry will build on novel molecular tools to apply cutting-edge genomic- and metabolomic-based approaches to deliver holistic solutions addressing the challenges of increasing productivity efficiency, crop resilience and food quality in the light of climate changes. Within the frame of the overall work program of GoodBerry, the Department of Pomology is involved in the evaluation of floral initiation and induction as well as dormancy control of strawberry, raspberry and black currant by agronomic trails, phenotyping of plants and providing plant material to identify genetic factors involved in these processes and for chemical analyses of fruit quality. Dr. Erika Krüger (Department of Pomology) is leading Work Package 1 of the GoodBerry-Project. The genetic evaluation of strawberry and raspberry is carried out by the Department of Biology (Dr. Bastienne Brauksiepe and Dr. Klaus Eimert) for all partners while the Department of Wine andBeverage Technology (Prof. Frank Will) will analyze the chemical fruit compounds including secondary metabolites of the above mentioned species for all partners.

GoodBerry brings together 19 partner institutions from Europe, China and Chile, and has a total budget of €4.87 million Euros of which nearly €317,000 are allocated to the HGU. GoodBery was launched March 1, 2016.

GoodBerry-Website