The global avocado market, worth approximately $13 billion a year, could be set for a boost courtesy of an Israeli innovation that would speed up growth and simplify exports.
The MIGAL Galilee Research Institute reports that a recent breakthrough would enable the rapid production of avocado seedlings.
"According to game-changing research led by our very own Dr. Lior Rubinovich, It is now finally possible to grow avocado plants solely from tissue culture" the institute announced via social media.
MIGAL has since founded a spinoff company, Bestree, to take advantage of the development and begin producing and marketing avocado seedling cultures, right near its home base in northern Israel.
It's a move that makes a lot of business sense, given that avocados are gaining popularity across the globe.
Some 15 million new avocado seedlings are planted worldwide each year, with increased demand emerging, particularly from European countries as well as India, China and Japan.
That international market for the fruit is likely to be impacted by more than just improvements in production as well.
Whereas traditional avocado seedlings are difficult and expensive to export due to plant protection regulations that try to keep crop diseases from spreading from country to country, cultured seedlings from sterilized tissue wouldn't be subject to the same strict rules.
"Development in tissue cultures improves the quality of the avocado seedlings, their availability and their health and ensures disease-free plants," said Rubinovich.
Cultivated avocados could also bring a bushel full of other advantages. For example, fruits grown in this way would be free of deformities, impervious to crop diseases, much faster-growing, and genetically uniform because all plants originate from the same handpicked healthy tissue.
Due to these factors and overall increased demand, many research institutions around the world have been attempting to increase avocado production and multiply seedlings, with the aim of speeding up overall production time.
Even without the advantages forecast by new innovations, the global avocado industry has been projected to grow to be worth more than $20 billion a year by 2028.
Yet with the potential to improve production and overcome strict trade regulations, ongoing developments in the industry may drive that figure up even higher.
Commenting on the breakthrough, the MIGAL Galilee Research Institute noted "the seeds of innovation appear to be seedless."
This story was provided to Newsweek by Zenger News and was developed in association with ISRAEL21c.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
