“Everything you don’t do in summer, you hope to compensate for at the end of the season”

Whoever took a peek into the greenhouses of yellow zucchini grower Jan van Vliet between the second half of June through the beginning of August did not see any zucchinis. The last zucchinis of the first cultivation were harvested halfway through June. After that, the greenhouse was left purposefully empty. Jan, whose distribution is done by Van Nature: “It is cheaper to go on holiday in the summer than to grow zucchinis. The growing costs don’t outweigh the price you get, around 8 to 10 cents per zucchini.”

 

The price for yellow zucchinis has been rather low throughout the year, the consequence of a large expansion in acreage. The cultivation of yellow zucchinis is in high demand at the expanse of the green variety. Even the cold spring, when the demand rises slowly, did not help. “The prices in spring were just bad. If it is too much, you don’t get anything.”

 

On the 1st of August, the second cultivation was planted. “In two mornings we filled up the 1 hectare greenhouse with zucchini plants. Watering them was tricky. The water in the dripping tubes heated up to 50 degrees Celsius at times. In order to not use hot water the first few days, we stopped watering before noon and started again in the evenings when temperatures were lower.”

 

Zucchinis can handle a lot of heat, but even for zucchinis, the recent heat was too much. “With night temperatures of 22 to 23 degrees Celsius, you really can’t do more than opening all of the windows. Preferably you want to put away the plants generatively, but this is not an easy thing to do. The plants quickly get affected on the mats and sometimes even get a bit too heavy.”

 
Reaching the end of November

The fruit production starts early due to the effects of the recent heat. “In the coming weekend, we will start harvesting again. Full throttle right away, seven days a week. We will keep up this harvesting rhythm till mid-way through November, after which we might be able to skip a few days. Harvesting two times a day might be better, but with the current prices it won’t pay off.”

 

It is important when it comes to zucchinis, especially at the beginning of the cultivation, not to let the zucchinis become too heavy. “The market is especially looking for 14s and 16s. Those sizes are harvested. If you leave 16s on for one extra day then it can turn into a 12, which is too heavy, especially for young plants.”

 

Jan expects to stay harvesting till the end of November. “We try to make it to the end of November, but this depends on the price. From October it decreases slightly, just like the number of products. The price then needs to be high, not the number of products. At the moment we got rid of the dime prices. With prices ranging from 30 to 40 cents the market seems to come back to life, but this could also be caused by the crop rotation. Only time will tell.”

Competition from open field growers does not really exist for yellow zucchinis. There is, however, cultivation happening in unheated greenhouses, but those growers stop halfway through October. “With our cultivation, we aim for the end of the season. What you leave in the summer you hope to compensate for later in the season.”