Understanding strawberry cell walls as a guide to breeding future-proof fruit genotypes

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This project targets one of the BBSRC's strategic priority areas: Bioscience for Sustainable Agriculture and Food; sub-theme Crops and soil. It comprises novel research that is both of fundamental interest and has industrial applicability. The softening of ripening fruit involves dramatic changes in cell-wall structure. In many species, softening is important because it makes fruit attractive to consumers. On the other hand, excessive softening is detrimental, causing wastage on the supermarket shelf and making crops more vulnerable to pathogens. Controlling the softening process, e.g. in strawberries, would cause less waste when UK crops peak; imported crops (e.g. from Southern Europe and Morocco in winter) could go further; and opportunities would be raised for summer UK exports. Slow-softening fruits would bring less disease and longer picking intervals.