Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Okanagan Plant Improvement Corporation

Technology Transfer Award

For the successful development and transfer of a breeding program to evaluate, propagate and commercialize a range of high-quality sweet cherry varieties

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For the better part of a century, the commercial potential of sweet cherries grown in the fertile Okanagan valley of interior British Columbia was confined to a few mainstay varieties sold to local seasonal markets. In 1994 Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) set the release of new sweet cherry varieties on a fresh course when its Summerland facility, the Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre (PARC), formed a partnership with the Okanagan Plant Improvement Corporation (PICO), an industry-led variety marketing organization created primarily to evaluate, propagate and commercialize more than 100 novel varieties of cherry cultivars and other fruits developed in PARC’s research labs and virus-free test orchards.

Over the last decade, the symbiotic AAFC/PICO relationship has enhanced the sweet cherry horticultural sector as a vital component of B.C.’s tree fruit industry, with export sales in 2007 of more than $21 million. The AAFC breeding program provides cherry producers with self-fertile varieties that yield high-quality fruit over an extended growing season and in an assortment of growing conditions while PICO’s variety commercialization expertise has transformed the way new fruit varieties are introduced and marketed.  The major shift to actively marketing sweet cherry varieties has generated more than 250 domestic and international licensing agreements and returned more than $2 million in royalties to AAFC.

Team Members

Goewin Demmon
Ann de St. Remy
Christian Fortin
Frank Kappel
Richard MacDonald
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

John Kingsmill
Ken Haddrell
Okanagan Plant Improvement Corporation