Lowe has been part of Plant & Food’s kiwifruit breeding programme at Te Puke for 30-plus years and while just retired, he continues to keep a watching brief on how future breeding work is coming along.
Today’s world-leading kiwifruit breeding facility is a far cry from the wooden bungalow, maize crops and pile of orchard posts that greeted him and his wife when they arrived in the early 1970s.
He had got the position after completing a major in chemistry at Canterbury and building an interest in horticulture while working in the Horotane Valley over the holidays. That had been followed by a stint at the then DSIR Research orchard in Appleby in the Tasman district as a horticultural technician.
“And in those days when we arrived at Te Puke in 1972, it was largely citrus fruit throughout the Bay of Plenty, and the growing of kiwifruit was pretty limited,” he said.
However, the Rogernomic reforms of the mid-80s requiring dollar for dollar investment by the industry, alongside government funding and a search for higher value crops, prompted more kiwifruit research.
The original Gold kiwifruit, known as Hort 16A was hailed as the crop to help kiwifruit make another leap in value and returns until Psa struck in November 2010.
“We soon discovered the majority of the diploid plant material was Psa sensitive, and this included 16A,” he said.
Diploid genetics contain two complete sets of chromosomes, one from each parent, while tetraploid have four sets of chromosomes, two from each parent.
But Lowe and his team had also learnt well before Psa struck back in 1995, that they could improve shelf life and fruit size in Gold kiwifruit by using some tetraploid genetic material which had improved storage characteristics, albeit poorer taste.
“It had started to look good, but 16A was doing well at the time so we stuck with it. But when Psa struck, we discovered the Gold3 tetraploid material was surviving quite well,” he said.
Fortunately, there were semi-commercial plots in place and hundreds of plants were at a mature enough stage to source grafts off.
“Growers were able to just chop off their 16A and regraft the Gold3, initially registered as Zesy002, onto their original root stock. It meant in a couple of years the new fruit was in production again,” he said.
Hailed as one of the quickest turnarounds in crop type anywhere, Lowe nevertheless has one eye on “where next?”
The Gold3 plants were the result of one female plant out of a batch of 2500, but that was in turn the result of 10 years and over 100,000 seedlings in total being reared, evaluated and discarded.
“And that was just here in Te Puke,” he said.
From that one fortuitous seedling the industry now has 5000ha of SunGold fruit in place, producing 75 million trays and generating over $1 billion of export earnings. A further 1400ha of additional plantings are to follow over the coming two years.
“We are fortunate to have a good model where we are getting support from government research funding for plant development, and Zespri funds the commercial side of the programme, so we have a route to market for plants,” he said.
Lowe recounts the intense pressure breeders and researchers were under to develop plants, treatments and responses to Psa, and it has earned significant recognition locally and globally for collaborative scientific success.
Lowe himself has been recognised by receiving the 2020 Plant Raisers Award by the Royal NZ Institute of Horticulture. In 2018, another Plant & Food team headed by Dr Bruce Campbell were also recognised with the Prime Minister’s Science Prize.
Lowe has also just received a lifetime achievement award from Plant and Food Research as this year’s NZ Science awards, recognising excellence among Crown Research Institute scientists and researchers.
Lowe says because Psa has been beaten back to a manageable level with the tolerant species, it does not mean the perfect plant has been crafted by him and his team.
“We need to keep developing material that has good but different genetics to Gold3, and is still commercially viable. It is like a form of genetic insurance, should another disease incursion come along,” he said.
Meantime, work also continues tuning up the recently launched red variety, another area Lowe has been working closely in.
“We lost a lot of red plant material to Psa because it was diploid, and more vulnerable. We have found the version we have now has enough tolerance to Psa with good management to be commercially viable,” he said.
Further work will involve boosting its fruit size and storage ability, possibly by combining with genetics from a tetraploid variety originally found in China, or via chromosome doubling techniques. He is optimistic about its future as Asian markets enjoy the colour and berry-like flavour it delivers.
While much is made of gene-editing technology, Lowe remains ambivalent about how soon it will usurp traditional breeding methods.
“It will depend upon when our trading partners would be prepared to accept that type of technology,” he said.
Meanwhile, challenges like climate change looms for breeders of a plant that relies upon winter chilling for flowering and cropping.
At present, depending upon the winter, the sector uses a controversial spray called hydrogen cyanamide, or Hi-Cane, to promote flowering.
“While we may use Hi-Cane now, for how long will that be possible? If it were to be banned, there would be a need for plants with genetics that did not require it. Researchers are working on alternatives, but it would be better to have genetics that did not require it,” he said.
Contemplating retirement, Lowe says he hopes to retain regular contact with his colleagues at Plant and Food, and he’s particularly interested in how kiwi-berries, a relatively new but challenging fruit, progresses.
He is also considering the options around rose breeding, an intensely commercial and competitive field still full of challenges.
“I think I leave with a good succession plan in place,” he said.
“Really it has come down to being part of a great team, and as breeders I think regardless of the plant, we will always think ‘what can we do better?’” The challenge is always there.”
