Multiplication of potato seed
One of the core businesses of Van Rijn - KWS B.V. is the production of seed potatoes. The Netherlands is world famous for its seed potato quality. Van Rijn - KWS B.V. has experience in seed production in the best growing areas in the Netherlands for many years. The light to medium clay-soil areas in the north-western, northern and central parts of the country has supplied the majority of the potato seed. A big advantage of those areas is their relatively close location to the coastal areas, which reduces the risks for diseases and viruses.
70% of the total seed production in the Netherlands is exported to up to 60 countries around the world. The seed potato production is mainly based on contracts and planned production in combination with the weather conditions in the growing season. The high graded pre-basis seed potato production of Van Rijn - KWS B.V. is carried out by a selected group of specialized growers who have many years of experience in producing excellent potato seed. This potato seed is used by other groups of growers for growing seed potatoes meant for export or local ware potato production. Most of those growers use the traditional system of classical clone selection. Nevertheless the use of in vitro-propagated tubers is increasing. This in vitro propagated seed is used by pre-basis growers as well as by end-growers.
The pre-basis growers of Van Rijn – KWS B.V. are located in other areas than the standard potato production.
This has mainly to do with centralising the pre-basis seed production and reducing the risks for diseases and viruses.
Increasingly, Van Rijn - KWS B.V. is working together with seed growers in other parts of the world to enable seed production of the highest quality of our own varieties for local use.
This has the benefit of reducing seed costs but maintaining quality.
Quality
The certification authorities, like the NAK in the Netherlands, take care of an excellent quality control system.
The use of pre-basis potato seed in Europe is controlled very strictly in order to increase the success rate of the buyer of the potato seed. Besides the statutory certification systems, Van Rijn – KWS B.V. runs an internal quality control system in order to fulfil the more demanding and strict requirements of their customers.
New potato varieties
When a new potato variety is introduced, the first seed potato production is performed by a selected group of growers under the full control of the Van Rijn - KWS B.V. breeding station.
At the same time a couple of pre-basis growers start with the multiplication of the first generations in order to build up sufficient quantity of seed stocks of the new potato variety.
Agronomic support and advice
Within the several production areas, the potato production is controlled by specialised agronomists. The agronomists also provide advice to growers on harvesting, storing, grading and packaging of the seed potatoes. By means of national and international research, Van Rijn - KWS B.V. agronomists collect and collate technical information about the optimum growing characteristics and conditions of the varieties in order to advise other growers in the best way possible.
