Various ways for successful Cultivar introduction in the market

Organic production requires novel, robust cultivars especially for crops such as apple, grape, tomato and potato which are very disease susceptible and are often protected by copper compounds. The European project CO-FREE aims to develop innovative methods, tools and concepts for the replacement of copper to reduce the use of copper in organic farming systems. One key strategy is the introduction of resistant cultivars. However, previous studies have shown that the introduction of novel cultivars often meets substantial obstacles as retailers’ and/or consumers’ awareness has to be generated in order to open the market. Resistance is an important issue for farmers but not immediately appealing for consumers as they are hardly aware of the fact that current cultivars are not always robust. In this brochure key obstacles and opportunities for market introduction of disease-resistant cultivars of apple and potato are described.