Bayer completes the lettuce calendar by combining production in several different countries
During the field demonstration days held by the brand Nunhems® at its La Palma experimental station (Murcia), a new meaning was given to the concept of versatility by developing materials that complete the supply calendar combining production cycles in different areas of Europe. “In this way we can supply any chain throughout the year with the same Romaine lettuce variety, combining the autumn and winter production in Spain with the summer production in the United Kingdom or Northern Europe,” crop specialist Alfonso Fernández emphasises. “The important acceptance of our Romaine lettuces, where Glamoral has become the winter leader, shows that we have got it right.”
At the open days, Bayer presented new varieties with dual suitability for traditional and high density crops, which may also be commercially used indistinctly for consumption fresh, processed and for preparing lettuce hearts in ‘single’ and ‘twin’ formats. In all cases, they are not varieties that are sensitive to the photoperiod. For autumn and spring cycles, Sideral is a Romaine lettuce developed using the same premises of versatility and it is characterised by its incredible yield and by its important resistance to Tip Burn.
Another new development is the Better Baby Leaf concept to differentiate varieties that bring together a bonus in shelf life, colour, texture and yield per hectare, differential attributes that are very relevant for the processing industry, which obtains longer lasting raw materials that are also very pleasant to eat. All the new developments in this new concept include a complete package of resistances: RedFlash, GreenFlash, Nitaflash and ThorFlash.
For autumn production of Iceberg, Kuenka has become a reference due to its excellent versatility, a characteristic that it shares with other new developments in the typology that allow the production to be completed throughout the entire autumn calendar.
In Little Gem, the new development is Themes, a new and surprising concept that stands out at the point of sale due to its closure and overlapping, and due to its deep, bright green colour.
Likewise, the new generation of Multileaf® Apollo is being strengthened with the launch of a new variety that increases productivity per hectare and that stands out due to its resistance to oxidation, consolidating the commercial leadership of Multigreen 101 and Multired 98 in the processing sector. Throughout the range new resistances to Bremia Lactucae, Aphids and Nasonovia have been developed.
