Pepper growers - and pepper fans will be amazed at Westland Seeds in Holland. The demo glasshouse is full of special, brightly coloured, strangely shaped, fiery hot and sweet varieties and it is currently a beautiful season to look at the range. Not only for the fan, but also for the commercial grower, there are interesting products to discover in the glasshouse.
A few of the colourful range in the demo glasshouse
Growth
Red peppers, yellow peppers, green peppers, purple peppers, salmon pink peppers, light yellow peppers, long peppers, shrunken torn peppers, sweet peppers, vine peppers, Chinese peppers, peppers for sambal, upwardly growing peppers - they are all in the demo glasshouse of Westland Seeds. Not crazy: the breeder decided from the beginning to focus only on the hybridization of peppers. That was 8 years ago now and from a group of passionate pepper fans, Westland Seeds has now grown into a business that has worldwide sales via dealers. Last year, the team of breeders quadrupled - from one to four - and that means that the stream of new varieties will further increase.
Diversity in types - from upward to long grill peppers
Peppers peppers peppers
"The chilli pepper market is very broad," says Iwan van Vliet of Westland Seeds. "You are actually always busy with specialities. That makes it a special market." The surprises in the sector don't only come from the cultivation spaces, they also come from unexpected sources. "Jamie Oliver increased the popularity of Jalapenos enormously," says Van Vliet while he is showing the different varieties in the demo glasshouse. "In Europe, they want a pepper than doesn't shrink, but in Mexico they want them with shrink tears. We need to react to that." And, for a number of vine pepper plants: "These were predominantly popular in Africa, but now a Dutch grower has started with them. You need to wait for harvesting until the whole vine is fully coloured, but then you have a really beautiful product. And it is cheaper to grow them here than to import them." This sort of special variety doesn't only go to commercial growers, but also for the parcel trade: to garden centres and vegetable gardens. "Even if you are really big in peppers, it's still a relatively small segment."
Colours in the pepper segment, split into snack, block and point. Top left the orange WLS 2091. Bottom left the speciality paprimaat. Bottom right success number 1225.
Peppers
It is different with the sweet pepper (paprika), which fills three quarters of the demo glasshouse at Westland Seeds. Van Vliet shows a number of varieties - split into block, point and snack types. For all peppers, it is clear that the same topics are important "Production, labour-friendliness, taste, and resistance," says Van Vliet. "Those are the focus points." They can't say much about it yet, but the business hopes to shortly develop resistances in the point segment. "Resistances in the point segment are certainly important. There is very little at the moment." A second, interesting introduction in the snack segment: The snack pointed pepper, in the midi variant. "A snack pointed pepper can be a maximum of 15 cm, needs to be nice and smooth, sweet tasting and for packaging purposes be straight. That is what we have," states Van Vliet. The variety is available in red, yellow and orange and this is important for mixed packaging. They already exist in the US and Canada, and in Europe a nursery near the German border is filled with this introduction to the snack segment.
One of most striking varieties in the glasshouse is the grill pepper. It is a tasty, gigantic pepper with a particular shape.
Block peppers
Westland Seeds introduced the WLS 1225 last year - a variety of which Van Vliet expects a lot. Why is the business so interested in this segment? Is this market saturated and they expect to get a better variety than the standard variety, or is there still some geographical room for development? "The area cannot grow indefinitely, but we still see possibilities. You actually want to develop a block pepper that sets the standard."
The yellow block 1225, orange WLS 2091 and the midi sweetpoint.
For more information:
Westland Seeds
Poortcamp 9E
2678 PT De Lier
E [email protected]
T +31 174 527 750
www.westlandseeds.nl
