IG International, one of India’s leading fresh fruit firms, has signed a licensing agreement with Italian nursery consortium Consorzio Italiano Vivaisti (CIV) to grow a new apple variety, Desy, in India.
The agreement was signed by IG International’s Tarun Arora and CIV’s Pier Filippo Tagliani at Fruit Logistica, the annual fresh produce trade show held in Berlin.
Desy is a full-colour red apple that’s crunchy, juicy and super-sweet, according to CIV. It is also ‘grower friendly’ as the trees are easy to manage, produce good yield and show high disease tolerance, a statement from IG International said, quoting the breeder.
A key benefit of the variety is its resistance to apple scab and powdery mildew, Tagliani said.
Trial run
Arora said IG will cultivate around 10 hectares of Desy in India on trial, and expand to around 200 hectares in the coming years
“We are testing it and we will get complete results in a year or two. By 2026-27, CIV will look at growing it with other farmers,” he said. Desy is the first international apple variety from IG in India.
“It’s also one of the finest varieties in terms of disease resistance. And from what we’ve seen in the trials in Bolzano and southern Italy, it performs consistently across growing regions. It’s a one-pick apple, so this also reduces the cost for us,” Arora said.
Shelf life
The apple can last long even outside controlled atmosphere storage.
“Desy has a striking appearance with 90 per cent red colour and a yellow background,” said Tagliani. Its Brix level is 16 degrees at harvest, going up to 18 degrees after storage. The flesh is firm, juicy and crunchy, and it has an excellent shelf-life, he said.
Besides Italy and India, Desy is cultivated under licence in Poland and Turkey.