150 ha of autumn tomatoes in the Netherlands in winter 2022-2023
Tholen – Due to the energy crisis, the lighting in tomato cultivation is showing again. Joop Verhoeven, Senior Advisor Tomato and Bell Pepper at Delphy, speaks of a decrease from 800 to now 100 ha. “As a result, you see that growers are responding to it. You now see that cucumber growers are doing the same as twenty years ago, they are going to plant an autumn tomato again. Normally you have cucumber growers who plant cucumbers three times, but now they see that there are no illuminated tomatoes and plant cucumbers twice, followed by autumn tomatoes in September.”
Autumn tomatoes at Dutch cucumber grower, end of November 2022
Surprised
So back to the past, and that actually has two reasons: “To make money and to keep the staff busy. You see that development quite a lot. The seed house with the most autumn tomatoes, De Ruiter, was even surprised, they were completely sold out.”
Joop thinks that there are currently 150 hectares of autumn tomatoes in the Netherlands. “99 percent of this is coarse truss; that is easy to process for cucumber growers, a matter of cutting and putting it away in the box, without having to sort.”
For more information:
Delphi
Joe Verhoeven
Senior Advisor Tomato and Bell Pepper
Region: Netherlands, Belgium
M +31 (0)6 53 42 72 30
[email protected]