New Varieties Show Huge Potential

Recently Lefroy Valley held a tomato showcase.  As Pepino MV has put a virtual full stop to grower visits for seed representatives and others. To prevent the spread of the virus they instead held a very carefully managed showcase of their existing and new tomato range. To manage this anyone that attended were required to book a viewing time over so that cross over with other growers was prevented.  Growers that attended were supplied with full PPE and even asked to place phones in sealed bags.  

The fruit was carefully presented and was easy to see without touching.  Janine Grul and Paula O’Hanlon were on hand to pick up the fruit if you wanted a closer look of the different varieties.  Since Pepino MV has been identified and as there is no vaccine in sight reducing the risk to spreading any potential virus is critical.   It is very important for growers to physically see a variety to understand how it looks rather than just from a pamphlet so this was a great innovation from Lefroy to showcase their fruit without risking virus transmission.

There is certainly a lot of interesting varieties and there was something for every grower’s market and taste on show and this was only snapshot of the large range on offer by Lefroy Valley.

Speciality/Heirlooms:

My eye was drawn at once to the unusual heirloom range consisting of many colours and interesting shapes.

Then as you moved around the room there was a wide selection of cherry, strawberry tom, and plum and larger acid free roma types.

Cocktail 60-70gms

The cocktail truss (0319) had a stunning fishbone truss structure with excellent contrast between the green and red with the added benefit of leaf mould and powdery mildew resistances

Large Beef Steak Truss/Loose 160-200gms

The display for heated high wire crops included Marnax and new material (TMI 9010, 9011, TMI 1455, TMI 6917) with additional resistance to Powdery Mildew.

Large Truss/Loose 130-150gms

There was a number of varieties for high tech heated glass houses in the Large Truss 130-150gms segment including Provine, Trevine, Lancaster and Xaverius. All varieties displayed excellent quality and the ability to be picked as truss or loose.

For the medium/low tech growers Natyssa and Octave (150-180gms) provide excellent quality and yield with the extra benefit of resistance to Leaf Mould and Tomato Spotted Wilt virus.

The display also highlighted the differences in tomato yield and quality due to different stages of production and whether the crop was grafted/non grafted and had heating.

For more information on the showcase or if you are interested in the above varieties contact:

Paula O’Hanlon

Technical Sales Representative

Mobile: +64 21731009

Phone +64 (9) 238 3593

E mail: paulao@lefroyvalley.co.nz

www.lefroyvalley.co.nz

Cover photo Janine Grul and Paula O’Hanlon (right)