The new commercial cucumber variety of De Ruiter is called Vertuo. "Vertuo (DRCE9613) was first screened in 2018 at different locations in France. In 2019 and 2020, we continued our vigorous testing at more locations in bigger plots to see how it performed under real, growers’ conditions," the team says. "Vertuo was released as a commercial variety because it is a variety with high yield potential, good fruit quality traits, powdery mildew resistance, and open plant architecture that makes it labor friendly."
The De Ruiter breeder team says also has very consistent production throughout the cycle. This consistent, reliable production makes it easier for a grower to plan for labor and commercial sales. As breeders we are listening to growers needs and constantly working on new genetics to satisfy them.
"We have been putting a lot of efforts into our cucumber breeding program globally in the last ten years in each segment," the De Ruiter team says. "Developing a commercial product takes a lot of time and requires very good collaboration between a breeder and many other internal and external partners including growers. We focus on spring cucumber portfolio to bring new genetics and valuable alternative for growers in this segment."
"We initially focused on developing parental lines with high yield potential. We tested many hybrids in France to understand what worked. Then we further improved those promising parental lines for other traits like powdery mildew resistance, average fruit weight, fruit length, color, shape, plant architecture, etc."
"Having a strong team in France helped us asses the varieties well and collect very detailed data which enabled us to make the best data-driven decisions."
For more information:
DeRuiter® team
www.deruiterseeds.com/