Since February 2015, Winset Farms has been using the Twinhook to prevent splitting in their topped tomato plants. We spoke to Tony Stevens, senior grower at WindSet Farms.
“Topped tomato plants carry the risk of stem splitting. Tomatoes on the vine – which we grow – are the worst variety for that, because of the variability of the height of the pinch point. Sometimes they can be very short and other times they can be over 4 inches. Splitting of the pinch point can lead to grow reduction, since it increases the risk of infection with Botrytis. To prevent stem splitting, we tried a couple of things, but they didn’t work.”
“When our Royal Brinkman contact Bas vistited us, he saw our struggle with this problem. Then he came up with the idea of using the Twinhook. The Twinhook is a twinclip that provides the node with the exact support it needs to prevent damage. We decided to give it a try on a couple of rows to see what would happen. The results were surprising. At first, we thought it had potential to cause a wound where botrytis could get in, but we didn’t have any issues with that. Actually, we didn’t see any negative effects at all of using the Twinhook. It’s a very safe and effective solution. That’s when we decided to use it on 16 acres of tomatoes on the vine early this year, with great results!”
“We are really happy with this solution. It has many advantages compared to our former solutions. At first, the clip is user friendly. It’s much easier to put on than all the other solutions we used. Second, it’s less time consuming. Since we don’t do it very often, we don’t get quicker at it, but we do an average of 650 clips per hour. Finally, it’s also really firm. I was worried that they would become brittle and break, but the clips lasted the whole length of the crop. It’s a great solution and I would definitely recommend it to other growers!”
For more information
Royal Brinkman
Woutersweg 10
2691 PR ‘s-Gravenzande
The Netherlands
T: (+31) 174 - 446100