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Enkhuizen, April 27, 2012 |
Dear Madams and Sirs,
Thanks for your usual cooperation.
Herewith we would like to inform you about the current growing condition of the tulips this year until now.
At the moment, there are 4 big problems in the tulip bulb production fields this year:
1) TBV ( Tulip Breaking (or mosaic) Virus)
The percentage of infection in the field is averagely much higher than usual. The virus situation can be different depending on the area where the tulips are grown, the varieties, etc. There are 4 main reasons for this increased infection:
a. The high temperature in Spring, causing the quick growing of the new plants. Quick growing plants are more sensible for virus infection.
b. The high temperature in Spring caused an earlier and greater activity of the insects which can spread the virus.
c. Much sunshine. This reduces the effect of the chemical field protection quickly.
d. A lot of irrigation, which also reduces the effect of the chemical field protection. For example in our own tulip fields we usually irrigate approx. 3 times in one Spring season, in Spring 2011 we had to irrigate 8 times due to the lack of natural rainfall.
2) Water damage; during December we had a lot of rainfall which even caused some flooding problems in certain fields
3) Frost damage; basically this was caused by a combination of the higher average temperatures in December and January and the extremely low temperature during 2 weeks in February. The higher temperature in December and January made nature develop as if Spring was coming soon. However, then suddenly in February the severe frost period started with temperatures around -15 to -20ºC below 0ºC .This combination caused a lot of damage. Not only in the tulips, but also in many other plants and trees. Actually, in the fruit trees like pears sometimes almost the complete harvest is expected to be lost. The frost damage depends very much on the variety, area, soil condition, etc. There can be big differences in damage between one variety and another in the same field. Weak varieties turn out to be Christmas Dream series, Purple Prince series, Leen van der Mark series, Silver Dollar, etc. On the sandy soil areas there seems to be almost no frost damage.
4) Augusta virus (= Tobacco Necroses Virus, TNV). This problem is caused by the combination of the above mentioned weather conditions and the poor soil structure. The Augusta virus can be latent for many years, and then once every 6-8 years it can become visible in a serious way. This year seems to show the most serious Augusta virus infection ever.
Both virus problems have a big effect on the classification of the tulips and therefore also on the availability of enough lots that meet the highest quality standards for many markets.
Besides, due to the frost damage problem, the growing condition in many fields, areas and varieties is very poor and this will certainly influence the total availability of the bulbs.
It is always difficult to estimate the influence of the present situation on the total market. The flower prices in Holland and thus in Europe were very poor in December, January and February, the main sales period of tulip flowers in Europe. In March and April the price recovered a little, but this was not enough for most of the tulip cut flower growers to have a satisfying result. Therefore it is difficult for the tulip market to recover.
Now under the present growing conditions many tulip growers withdraw their offers and want to wait and see the growing conditions of their fields in May and June. They do not want to take the risk to sell their bulbs of which it could turn out later that they do not grow enough in their fields.
We will keep you informed about the growing conditions. Please never hesitate to contact us if you have any questions about the growing technical or market conditions. Besides, your tulip enquiries are always welcome of course.
Having pleasure to be at your service and looking forward to hearing from you, we beg to remain with the best regards.
Yours sincerely,
Jan de Wit en Zonen B.V.
Jan de Wit |
