'S-GRAVENZANDE - In the summer of 2021, BASF Vegetable Seeds completed its second growing season in line with the Plant Empowerment philosophy at its Nunhems location in 's-Gravenzande, the Netherlands. With the support of the multidisciplinary team, the crop production strategy has now been put into practice, achieving a total yield of 121 kg per m2.
Integrated breeding
BASF Vegetable Seeds focuses on what the company calls 'integrated breeding' - combining the knowledge of plant breeders with state-of-the-art technology and emerging science. The company's goal is not just to sell seeds, but to provide its customers and the entire chain with innovation, expert advice and knowledge, reliable varieties, profitable concepts, and sustainable solutions. Together with Hoogendoorn Growth Management, one of the Plant Empowerment Implementation Partners, they previously conducted a trial with hydroponic lettuce at our Nunhems location in 's-Gravenzande, the Netherlands, based on autonomous and data-driven growing.
The results were so impressive that they decided to try it for tomatoes. That's where the other Plant Empowerment Implementation Partners came in. So in October 2019, BASF and all the partners set up a GPE trial on about 500m2.
Increasing the yield by almost 40%
In the first year of this project, which started in August 2019, the seed company focused mainly on building its dataset on crop performance as a basis for decision-making. In the 2020/2021 season, BASF tested the Plant Empowerment principles in practice using the Provine truss tomato variety. At the end of that season, production data analysis showed that the strategy had produced a total yield of 121 kg per m2, almost 40% higher than usual.
The Plant Empowerment Implementation Partners recently helped BASF start the 2021/2022 season. This time, the Plant Empowerment philosophy is being tested on a different variety: truss cherry tomato Adorion. BASF plans to use all the data to develop a reproducible growing strategy to offer to every customer who buys Adorion seeds. The plan will enable those growers to get the best out of this variety - and hopefully other types in the future.
More details in this Plant Empowerment article
Watch the full video here
