A peek into testing and trials at BASF | Nunhems

Did you know that the vegetables you eat are products of years of testing and research? There’s more that goes into growing vegetables than just planting seeds into the ground. Every variety must go through a series of trials to test the performance of a crop. These trials are run year-round, and continue from sowing to harvest, evaluating how a crop performs at every stage. For a crop like lettuce, growing time can vary between 60 and 100 days, and trial technicians check over the plants at least once a week.

The most important evaluation happens just before harvest, where trial technicians identify which variety might be the best choice for a grower. With the help of growers, we look for a few key characteristics to determine how well a crop is performing. These characteristics include type, adaptability, quality, yield, and disease resistance.

Visual Characteristics

Visual characteristics are all the physical features you can see right away: color, shape, and the type of plant. For example, these characteristics would determine whether a head of lettuce would be used in bagged lettuce you might buy at the grocery store, or if it would be chopped up for restaurants to use for salads or sandwiches.

Adaptability

A plants adaptability refers to how useful plants are to the grower. This is where we test how many months in a year a variety can be grown, and the conditions it can thrive in. A plant that can grow in more months and different areas is more useful to the growers and can reduce waste by giving growers more options and control over their harvest.

Quality and yield

Quality includes features such as weight and size which both growers and consumers look for when evaluating a crop and a crop product. The yield refers to the amount of quality produce that can be harvested. These factors go beyond just picking the nicest looking crop. Growers want a crop that will stay fresh and in good condition during transport until it reaches a consumer in the grocery store.

Disease Resistance

The last characteristic is disease resistance, or a plant’s protection against, for example, fungus, insects, pathogens or environmental factors. This gives the grower more usable product to sell and keeps the vegetables you purchase usable for longer.

All of these characteristics are valuable benchmarks to choose which variety will be grown. However, trials are useful for more than refining what already works. Trial Technicians are in communication with growers and are mindful of market changes. This way, Trial Technicans are always on the lookout for new ideas to innovate. By doing so, we’re not just testing what we already know, but we’re also exploring fresh new possibilities that could bring added value to growers and customers alike.