Sunnyridge Farms has announced that beginning with the next season, all of its blueberry varieties will be available for production in Peru.

Viveros Sunnyridge Chile executive director Marcela Zúñiga said with varieties like Emerald, Primadonna and Snowchaser, the company hopes to transform agriculture and blueberry production in the Andean nation.

All of the varieties come from the University of Florida breeding program in the U.S. and are patented, licensed and protected under existing laws. Now they will be available to Peruvian farmers, following the country's signing of UPOV 1991.

According to Zuñiga, all of these varieties have been in development for 20 years. The company has done extensive field testing in Mexico, the U.S., Argentina, Brazil and Chile with the goal of replacing older, less productive varieties.

"We are very happy to build on the success of our blueberry varieties in new markets, the same way that we have in Chile, Mexico and Brazil," Zúñiga said.

"Peruvian producers have been waiting for years to get licensing authorization from the University of Florida, so this is big news for Peruvian agriculture."

With these varieties, Zúñiga said Peru will begin producing blueberries earlier than Chile and better complement the Chilean season.

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