Today’s consumers place ever-higher demands on the products they buy, and tomatoes are no exception. Besides being flavorsome, they also need to be attractive and uniform. With Gerdicia RZ, Rijk Zwaan has added a new tomato variety to its assortment that is aligned with consumers’ rising expectations while also meeting the needs of both growers and retailers.
Unique characteristics of Gerdicia RZ
Gerdicia RZ sets itself apart from other varieties thanks to its high production level and attractive appearance with deep red-colored fruits and flat trusses. Gerdicia RZ performs well on fruit weight too; a truss of six fruits will deliver an average fruit weight of 125-135 grams. This enables growers to achieve both a good total yield and high quality with this strong, generative, and balanced variety. No other tomato variety in this fruit weight category is capable of achieving the same high production level as Gerdicia RZ.
Highly suitable for retail
Besides being interesting for growers, Gerdicia RZ offers benefits for retailers too. Thanks to its flat and uniform trusses combined with its deep red-coloured fruits, Gerdicia RZ is a real eye-catcher on the shelf and it also lives up to consumers' flavor expectations. It is known that in Germany shoppers associate smaller tomatoes with a better standard of tomato; Gerdicia RZ has a visibly smaller fruit size than the larger commodity varieties which gives the consumer the confidence that they are getting a better tasting, quality tomato.
Initial feedback on the Gerdicia RZ varieties
Last year, Gerdicia RZ was commercially produced in two greenhouses in the Netherlands and one in Denmark. “We’ve run trials in various countries and the feedback on this variety has been nothing but positive,” comments John Verbruggen, International Crop Specialist at Rijk Zwaan. “The results of the trials were so good in terms of both quality and production levels that we decided to expand this variety to more countries. Growers in several countries are now growing the variety in their entire greenhouses. They have described Gerdicia RZ as a labor-friendly variety with regard to both harvesting and packaging of the fruits, and they are impressed by the harvest performance.”
“An additional advantage for growers is the relatively short length of the plants,” continues John Verbruggen. “This tasty jointless tomato is easy to prune at six fruits and shows good performance under moderate and hot conditions. Gerdicia RZ can be grown both with and without artificial light, and is also suitable for organic production.”
For more information:
Rijk Zwaan
info@rijkzwaan.com
www.rijkzwaan.com