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Herb developments: Enza Zaden North America, Inc.


August 4, 2014

Recently members of the Enza North America and Germany team did join grower visits to see the performance of our cultivars under various production systems, and learn about advances in the herb market. Enza Zaden has had a long term herb breeding program dedicated to developing culinary herb and arugula cultivars for hydroponic and open field conditions for over thirty-years. Due to the extensive potted herb market in the EU, we have been able to glean valuable information from our European colleagues about seeding rates, pot sizes, fertility requirements, and the best cultivars in our assortment suited to these production systems. Most recently we have expanded our organic assortment by producing our best performing cultivars in organic form, branded under Vitalis Organic Seeds, to service the needs of this growing and regulated market.

Our brief cross country tour included invaluable visits to open field fresh market herb grower, ‘Trudeau Farms’ (photo 945) and arugula grower ‘VegPro’ (photo 962) in Quebec, Canada. We then travelled to the Pacific Northwest and visited with potted herb grower, ‘Kitchen Pick’ (photo 984) in British Columbia and ‘HerbCo’ (photo 1012) both an open field and greenhouse organic grower in Washington State. For our final days, we returned to our headquarters in California and had promising visits with open field and greenhouse fresh herb organic grower ‘Jacobs Farm’ (photo 1046); organic open field grower ‘Lakeside’ (photo 1089) who conducted parsley trials; organic arugula grower, ‘Earthbound’ (photo 1097) followed by organic greenhouse pot grower, ‘Rocket Farms’ (photo 1027). It was a very successful week of visits with a lot of learning and sharing of ideas.
We learned of some exciting new developments in our assortment that will be of specific interest to the US and Canadian herb market:

Basil


‘Eleonora’ Basil at Jacobs Farm Tunnel Trial

Three new Genovese basil varieties have been recently commercialized that include ‘Eleonora’, our first variety with intermediate resistance to downy mildew appropriate for pots or open field; ‘Elidia’ our first variety with intermediate resistance to Fusarium with large-shiny green leaves and short internodes, and ‘Keira’ our first variety with improved tolerance to cold conditions and enhanced shelf-life capacity. All varieties are available in certified organic and conventional form.

Parsley


‘Peione’ Parsley strip trials at Lakeside Organics with Enza Zaden West Coast Team

Two new parsley varieties for the open field market for both fresh and processing markets include ‘Peione’, a Gigante of Italy type with improved yield, larger leaves, thicker stalks and intermediate downy mildew resistance; and ‘Wega’, a new double curl type with dark green uniform variety - both have formally been commercialized in conventional form with organic availability in 2015.

Arugula

 

Arugula trial with Earthbound led by Amy Kaplan, Vitalis Organic Seeds, Organic Product Specialist

 

Three new arugula varieties have been launched and offer new traits to our arugula assortment. These include: ‘Bellezia’, a highly serrated, dark green variety with intermediate resistance to downy mildew and enhanced shelf-life capacity. ‘Letizia’, also has intermediate resistance to downy mildew and extended shelf-life, but with a more lobey-wide leaf shape. ‘Tanazia’ has been bred for better performance under cold conditions performing best in early spring and late fall plantings. Both ‘Bellezia’ and ‘Letizia’ will be available in both organic and conventional form in November 2014 – look for ‘Tanazia’ in 2015!

More information

For further information about our Enza Zaden / Vitalis Organic Seeds herb assortment, please go to our website or contact our Herb specialist Erica Renaud at e.renaud@enzazaden.com .


More news from:
    . Enza Zaden BV
    . Enza Zaden USA, Inc.


Website: http://www.enzazaden.com

Published: August 28, 2014

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