CULTIVATION AND TECHNOLOGY Many minitubers minimises the chance of mistakes The arable farm of the De Schutter Partnership in Vierhuizen is one of the characteristically-true seed potato farms for which north-western Groningen is so well known. For the partnership of father and son Anton and Frank de Schutter from Vierhuizen, the annual crop of 250,000 minitubers from their own greenhouse has been the basis for the cultivation and supply of high-quality S material for three years now. The fact that this means one crop less, and that the multiplication fields are bigger, which in turn need more accurate care, greatly reduces the chance of mistakes. What also plays a role is the method of cultivation, which the partners developed for the minitubers three years ago together with Timo ter Voort of Living Foods. Thanks to the simple, lowcost technology of the selected hydroculture system, they are able to harvest a great many tubers per square metre in a profitable way. That’s why we also wanted to find a cheaper way of producing minitubers. In that quest, we met Timo ter Voort of Living Foods. Together with him, we developed our own hydroculture system’, says Frank de Schutter (l). T he arable farm of the De Schutter Partnership in Vierhuizen is one of the characteristically-true seed potato farms for which north-western Groningen is so well known. The sandy loam soil is excellent for growing planting stock and the chance of disease is relatively low. It is therefore no surprise that this is where one finds the real planting stock specialists. Frank and Anton de Schutter are a striking example of the seed potato experts in this region. You don’t need to be a professor to discover all the signs pointing to this. A clean yard, neat farm buildings, shining machinery, orderly sheds, everything sparkling clean. And a talk with the partners soon goes very deep, whereby all cultivation aspects were reviewed. The main speciality of the partnership is the cultivation of 60 to 70 hectares of highly-quality S material grown with a fast multiplication method. The reason why this is so special is because the partners grow the first generation in a special way. For three years, this has taken place in a state-of-the-art, arched greenhouse for the production of minitubers in a hydroculture system. Within the partnership, De Schutter junior is responsible for the dayto-day running of the business. In well-thought-out sentences, 10 Potato World 2011 • number 3 Pagina 9
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