Luke - Natural Resources Institute Finland
Luke is a research organisation with expertise in renewable natural resources and sustainable food production. Luke has about 1,300 employees, half of them being researchers. We operate at different locations throughout Finland. We bring together experts in natural resources and sustainable food production. Our research fields include agriculture, forestry, food, fish, and wildlife. We carry out breeding programs of forest trees, fish and horticultural plants.
Luke also carries out statutory duties. We monitor natural resources, produce healthy stock material for certified plant production, inspect pest control agents for plant production, store genetic resources, produce data on greenhouse gases, support natural resource policies and produce Finland’s official food and natural resource statistics.
Main task in the project
In work package 1 we contribute to germplasm maintenance and selection, and conduct field and greenhouse trials especially for testing powdery mildew and crown rot resistance in strawberry populations. In work package 2 we work on marker validation and genomic selection for powdery mildew and crown rot resistance traits. For this, we have available the hybrid populations of strawberry progenitor species, Fragaria chiloensis and F. virginiana. In work package 3 our activities are in phenotyping the strawberry plant architecture and studying post-harvest parameters. We lead work package 4 activities, take part in stakeholder communication, develop descriptor tools to sensory analyses of berries, and work in developing consumer panel testing of different berries. We will provide data to work package 5, and participate in dissemination and communication activities in work packge 6 and in project management in work package7. We are involved in ethics issues of consumer studies in work package 8.
