Ruiter Seeds / Monsanto. This coarse vine tomato is ideal for consumption on bread, in soup and in salad. Last year, half of the nursery was filled with Merlice, but because of excellent quality and strong growth, we chose one type of tomato this year.

Blight resistance

Merlice's preference is clear: "The main reason for our choice was the blight resistance," Theo said. "In my opinion, it is also better to create one breed. In addition, Merlice's fruits are very uniform in shape. This breed produces a beautiful, shiny tomato with beautiful green parts. "

Coarse segment

Theo adds: "Merlice is a high-quality breed in the coarse segment. It's a short plant with always a vine of more. The average is eight to nine vines per bush with five tomatoes on each vine. Due to this plant tax Merlice will come into production later, ie mid-March February. "

Harvest

Every day the vine tomatoes are harvested with a large number of employees. Harvesting takes place from mid-March to the end of November. The busiest period is the summer months. In autumn, the crop grows again due to the limited light effects. From December the plant grows 12 cm a week. In the summer there is 25 cm of growth a week! The entire plant is 12 meters long on an annual basis.

Growth process

In 2020, at Noordam Plants around 20 October, a total of 150,000 plants were sown. In 's-Gravenzande the cultivation of the first 45-50 cm took place. After 45 days, tomato plants came to Honselersdijk on 5 and 6 December. The plants were placed directly on the rockwool mats besides a water supply dripper. For more information and reuse of these mats you can watch the video from, van Vliet Containers.