Production system
Our production system complies with national and European certification rules. The production system is under continuous supervision of Naktuinbouw, the national official inspection and certification authority.
The production system is based on three principal elements:
- to ensure trueness-to-variety
- to ensure internal and external health
- to ensure vitality.
Trueness-to-variety
The propagation material of a variety that will be taken up in our system, must be true-to-type, and must remain true-to-type all along the production process. The first check is, whether the propagation material meets all the criteria of the official variety description. In special cases, e.g. with red coloured mutants of apple, special attention is given to the stability during the production process. To this end, pomological controls are integral part of the propagation scheme (Basic I and Basic II). Mother trees for the production of bud wood and graft wood are directly derived from these true- to-type basic level, and are planted in high density plantations for a maximum of four production years.
Internal and external health
Viruses influence the health of a tree and the economic success of a crop. It is not possible to fight against viruses in the nursery or in the orchard. The only way is prevention, by using clean planting material.
Our prebasic material, which is the fundament of the production system, is individually tested for the absence of all relevant viruses and virus-like organisms.
Furthermore, we produce our propagation material in such a manner, that the spread of fungi, bacteria and insects threatening the trees is minimalised.
Vitality
The majority of our mother trees is grown in high density plantations, never used longer than four production years. In this way the propagation material always will be produced on relatively young trees. The mother trees are grown on seedling or strong rootstocks, in order to keep the propagation material in a vegetative state and to prevent the formation of flower buds.
Tracking and Tracing
Tracking and Tracing
Strict conditions prevent off-typing. It is not uncommon to find off-types in a production process. A well-known example is the instability of red coloured mutant apple varieties. Our production system is designed in such a way that a. it is unlikely that off-typing occurs, and b. if off-types show up they will be removed immediately from the system. In this system, which is characterised by a limited number of propagation steps, effective tracking and tracing is an important role. This requires adminstrative accuracy and skilled labour.