  Paul Grootscholten of Agro Care on the left and Frank van Antwerpen, Product Manager Tomato for Western Europe, on the right.. Photo: Enza Zaden In recent years, the tomato industry has faced a major challenge from the spread of tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV), and despite many phytosanitary measures, infection rates have continued to rise. New High Resistance varieties will change this in the short term, and Paul Grootscholten of Agro Care has been evaluating the high resistant “HREZ” varieties from Enza Zaden.
HREZ is a growing collection of tomato varieties that may herald a long-awaited change for the tomato industry. The first six varieties have been on the market in the Benelux since last year; and in 2023 the range will have expanded to more than twenty HREZ varieties in almost all segments.
“No grower wants his plants to die,” explains Paul Grootscholten of Agro Care. “But in recent years, that has certainly been the reality. Everyone in our company has handled it well, but it’s not something you can control. You’re in survival mode, not knowing what the crop will be like tomorrow.” The situation at Agro Care is now completely different, however, with the arrival of the High Resistance tomato varieties. “We currently grow almost only HREZ varieties here. The one variety that is not yet resistant will be replaced next year. It’s great for us to be able to focus fully on cultivation once again.”
The new varieties arrived just in time for Grootscholten and his colleagues: “It was a waiting game; we were a bit on edge, of course.” Still, he’s pleased with the pace at which High Resistance options have become available. After all, it was only relatively recently, in 2016, that one plant at Enza Zaden exhibited a remarkable and promising performance. While it normally can take well over seven years before that would lead to a new introduction on the market, there are already more than 500 hectares of High Resistance tomatoes in the Benelux sector.
Read the full article in the JanFeb2024 sample copy
Published in International Pest Control – January/February 2024 issue. The post Tomatoes: Responding to the spread of ToBRFV first appeared on International Pest Control Magazine. 
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