Ton Bruin farms 50ha north of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, near the middle of the peninsula. Ton farms in a dairy region and says his business is going very well and is based on renting land from local dairy farmers. He rents virtually all of the land he farms each year, but only for one year, as his business depends on a six-year rotation.
Ton is a tulip producer and bulb production is very much synonymous with the region. The Irish Farmers Journal visited his yard last September and was somewhat surprised to find a shed of 70m x 60m housing a range of machinery, sophisticated cleaning and grading equipment and cold storage. This was a big operation on 50ha but Ton assured us that he was making good money despite a visibly high-cost base.
The land in the area is around sea level and is a very heavy clay. The immediate area around him is a combination of intensive dairying and intensive cropping. Ton’s farming business is the multiplication or bulking up of tulip bulbs which are planted around October and harvested about nine to 10 months later. Flowers are produced during the growing season but they are not harvested and are topped to increase the level of photosynthate being returned to the bulbs to help bulk them up.
Harvesting bottleneck
Producing and harvesting tulip bulbs is an intensive business, especially on heavy clay soil. Not so long ago, bulbs were harvested manually at the rate of 0.5ha/week with the help of about 15 people. A recent development in production technology has been instrumental in getting the rate of harvesting up to 3ha per day. The advance in mechanisation is a consequence of the development of a new planting and harvesting technique.
Bulbs are planted in beds and laid on a polypropylene net with about 1cm2 holes. This is broadly similar to the net bags used to hold the bulbs for sale but it is much stronger. A second net is placed immediately on top of the bulbs and this is covered by 12cm to 15cm of soil.
Planting takes place in the autumn, around October, and the bulbs emerge around March. It seems that the heavy clay soils really suit this multiplication process. The net system helps to prevent most of the soil from sticking to the bulbs and reduces the cleaning requirement post harvest. The bulbs effectively grow in a netted envelope and the nets are taken back up during the harvesting process but the system still speeds up harvesting significantly.
The intensive dairy land used means that little or no fertiliser is required for the crop. Ton estimates that he uses about 14km of net per hectare and this is all taken up again during harvesting and recycled later.
Husbandry
About 10t/ha of bulbs are planted and Ton says he expects to harvest about 500,000 bulbs per hectare. The planted ground is over-sprayed with glyphosate just prior to emergence in spring to kill any over-wintered weeds and he might also apply Stomp at that time.
The tulips emerge in March. From the point of emergence, the tulips are sprayed for aphids every five days until harvest. This equates to about 14 aphicides per crop and he also uses some straight mineral oil to act as an insect deterrent. The first aphicide treatment is applied just before the vegetation emerges in spring.
Just like many other crops, aphids carry virus into the crop which can affect the growth and vigour of the bulbs producing flowers in the next generation, so every effort is made to prevent infection.
During the growing season, a number of people operate specialised inspection carts which travel over every bed twice during the growing season.
People lie on their fronts on these inspection wagons to examine every plant growing beneath as the cart passes over. Any plant that looks off colour or is not growing uniformly gets a squirt of glyphosate from the examiner and that bulb will be rotted by harvest time.
This intensive spraying for aphids is also a challenge in terms of the weather conditions to get spraying done and also in terms of ground conditions.
But Ton says that he has always been able to get the sprays applied, give or take a day. And given that he must make use of every weather window, Ton uses variable tyre pressure to help minimise the impact of the tractor wheels on the ground. Pressure is varied from about 0.8 bar in the field to 1.8 bar for road work.
Varieties
Ultimately, tulips are grown to produce flowers so the quality of the bulbs being sown is critical. There are strict specifications set and failure means loss of market. Bulbs that fail as high-grade stock can actually be used as one-year bulbs to produce flowers.
The bulbs are boxed at harvest in a similar way to potatoes but the boxes are less than half the size to aid air flow for drying and curing. The bulbs are dried after harvest and then put into cold storage until they are taken out for cleaning, grading, etc. Each bulb has to be handled to remove the outer skin and the daughter tubers, which are then graded. This is done using student labour from eastern Europe at a rate of €15 to €16/hour.
The bulbs are sold by variety, generally to an exporter. Ton grows seven main varieties but he grows about 150 other varieties in the hope that some of these will become the next big thing in the market. This requires significant control systems to avoid mixing varieties. The hope is that he will have some of that seed-stock before it becomes excessively expensive. The unit of sale depends on the customer.
Some varieties have no plant breeders’ rights at this point but for those that do the cost is about €1,500/ha.
Land rental
As stated previously, land is rented from a number of dairy farmers and the deal involves giving them the same area as he takes so they have the necessary hectares to cater for their slurry. Land rental is about €4,000 to €4,500 per hectare for the year and Ton says it has even gone over €5,000/ha in places now.
That said, the profitability of bulb production has enabled good tulip bulb growers to buy a lot of land in recent years and land in this area of northern Netherlands is between €80,000 and €120,000 per hectare, so it’s not for the fainthearted. They need their own land for expansion because they must have it to swap with others to secure their rotation.
Sprayer
Having to spray in all weathers is a challenge. Ton uses a Kverneland mounted sprayer but it is fitted with the MacGrow magnet system. This only adds about 200kg to the weight of the sprayer, Ton says, and he is happy that it is significantly reducing drift in windy conditions. This has been tested on his farm. He is also happy that he is getting superior coverage on the target plants – again, this was tested on his farm.
A system of planting tulip bulbs between two layers of netting has helped to considerably increase harvesting capacity for bulb producers.Different land is rented every year from local dairy farmers at a cost up to €2,000 per acre.About 14km of netting is used per hectare in this production system.Tulip bulb production remains very profitable for growers.
Ton Bruin farms 50ha north of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, near the middle of the peninsula. Ton farms in a dairy region and says his business is going very well and is based on renting land from local dairy farmers. He rents virtually all of the land he farms each year, but only for one year, as his business depends on a six-year rotation.
Ton is a tulip producer and bulb production is very much synonymous with the region. The Irish Farmers Journal visited his yard last September and was somewhat surprised to find a shed of 70m x 60m housing a range of machinery, sophisticated cleaning and grading equipment and cold storage. This was a big operation on 50ha but Ton assured us that he was making good money despite a visibly high-cost base.
The land in the area is around sea level and is a very heavy clay. The immediate area around him is a combination of intensive dairying and intensive cropping. Ton’s farming business is the multiplication or bulking up of tulip bulbs which are planted around October and harvested about nine to 10 months later. Flowers are produced during the growing season but they are not harvested and are topped to increase the level of photosynthate being returned to the bulbs to help bulk them up.
Harvesting bottleneck
Producing and harvesting tulip bulbs is an intensive business, especially on heavy clay soil. Not so long ago, bulbs were harvested manually at the rate of 0.5ha/week with the help of about 15 people. A recent development in production technology has been instrumental in getting the rate of harvesting up to 3ha per day. The advance in mechanisation is a consequence of the development of a new planting and harvesting technique.
Bulbs are planted in beds and laid on a polypropylene net with about 1cm2 holes. This is broadly similar to the net bags used to hold the bulbs for sale but it is much stronger. A second net is placed immediately on top of the bulbs and this is covered by 12cm to 15cm of soil.
Planting takes place in the autumn, around October, and the bulbs emerge around March. It seems that the heavy clay soils really suit this multiplication process. The net system helps to prevent most of the soil from sticking to the bulbs and reduces the cleaning requirement post harvest. The bulbs effectively grow in a netted envelope and the nets are taken back up during the harvesting process but the system still speeds up harvesting significantly.
The intensive dairy land used means that little or no fertiliser is required for the crop. Ton estimates that he uses about 14km of net per hectare and this is all taken up again during harvesting and recycled later.
Husbandry
About 10t/ha of bulbs are planted and Ton says he expects to harvest about 500,000 bulbs per hectare. The planted ground is over-sprayed with glyphosate just prior to emergence in spring to kill any over-wintered weeds and he might also apply Stomp at that time.
The tulips emerge in March. From the point of emergence, the tulips are sprayed for aphids every five days until harvest. This equates to about 14 aphicides per crop and he also uses some straight mineral oil to act as an insect deterrent. The first aphicide treatment is applied just before the vegetation emerges in spring.
Just like many other crops, aphids carry virus into the crop which can affect the growth and vigour of the bulbs producing flowers in the next generation, so every effort is made to prevent infection.
During the growing season, a number of people operate specialised inspection carts which travel over every bed twice during the growing season.
People lie on their fronts on these inspection wagons to examine every plant growing beneath as the cart passes over. Any plant that looks off colour or is not growing uniformly gets a squirt of glyphosate from the examiner and that bulb will be rotted by harvest time.
This intensive spraying for aphids is also a challenge in terms of the weather conditions to get spraying done and also in terms of ground conditions.
But Ton says that he has always been able to get the sprays applied, give or take a day. And given that he must make use of every weather window, Ton uses variable tyre pressure to help minimise the impact of the tractor wheels on the ground. Pressure is varied from about 0.8 bar in the field to 1.8 bar for road work.
Varieties
Ultimately, tulips are grown to produce flowers so the quality of the bulbs being sown is critical. There are strict specifications set and failure means loss of market. Bulbs that fail as high-grade stock can actually be used as one-year bulbs to produce flowers.
The bulbs are boxed at harvest in a similar way to potatoes but the boxes are less than half the size to aid air flow for drying and curing. The bulbs are dried after harvest and then put into cold storage until they are taken out for cleaning, grading, etc. Each bulb has to be handled to remove the outer skin and the daughter tubers, which are then graded. This is done using student labour from eastern Europe at a rate of €15 to €16/hour.
The bulbs are sold by variety, generally to an exporter. Ton grows seven main varieties but he grows about 150 other varieties in the hope that some of these will become the next big thing in the market. This requires significant control systems to avoid mixing varieties. The hope is that he will have some of that seed-stock before it becomes excessively expensive. The unit of sale depends on the customer.
Some varieties have no plant breeders’ rights at this point but for those that do the cost is about €1,500/ha.
Land rental
As stated previously, land is rented from a number of dairy farmers and the deal involves giving them the same area as he takes so they have the necessary hectares to cater for their slurry. Land rental is about €4,000 to €4,500 per hectare for the year and Ton says it has even gone over €5,000/ha in places now.
That said, the profitability of bulb production has enabled good tulip bulb growers to buy a lot of land in recent years and land in this area of northern Netherlands is between €80,000 and €120,000 per hectare, so it’s not for the fainthearted. They need their own land for expansion because they must have it to swap with others to secure their rotation.
Sprayer
Having to spray in all weathers is a challenge. Ton uses a Kverneland mounted sprayer but it is fitted with the MacGrow magnet system. This only adds about 200kg to the weight of the sprayer, Ton says, and he is happy that it is significantly reducing drift in windy conditions. This has been tested on his farm. He is also happy that he is getting superior coverage on the target plants – again, this was tested on his farm.
A system of planting tulip bulbs between two layers of netting has helped to considerably increase harvesting capacity for bulb producers.Different land is rented every year from local dairy farmers at a cost up to €2,000 per acre.About 14km of netting is used per hectare in this production system.Tulip bulb production remains very profitable for growers. 
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