Dutch cucumber grower Wijnen: a happy Nutrimite™ pioneer

On July 1^st 2013, Biobest announced the launch of Nutrimite^™. Cucumber grower Twan Wijnen in The Dutch province of Limburg was one of the first to start large scale use of Nutrimite^™ in cucumber.

In his greenhouse, with 9 ha of cucumber, he already had significant expertise with bio control. “We’ve been using swirskii with reasonably good results”, says Mr. Wijnen, “but we did not always achieve the level of control that we were striving for. Especially thrips has become more and more challenging to control in recent years.”
The grower found Biobest’s Nutrimite^™ system to boost the power of his predatory mite population compelling and worked closely with Biobest and Arend-Sosef, Biobest’s distributor in Holland, to apply Nutrimite^™ on all 9 ha in combination with swirskii.


“I have been really satisfied with the results. I’ve seen much higher population levels of swirskii than normal. Without Nutrimite^™, for sure, I would have been heading for another year with high thrips pressure. Nutrimite^™ helped me get a clean crop.” continues Mr. Wijnen.


“I was curious to see how well Nutrimite^™ would work in a crop that can grow as fast as half a meter per week. Biobest proposed a strategy with modulation of the Nutrimite^™ application frequency during the season. They really helped my swirskii army do a wonderful job. They were all happily snacking on Nutrimite^™, but that made them even more aggressive thrips hunters. I’m about to plant my 2014 crop and my swirskii’s don’t need to worry about going hungry while hunting, they can look forward to another year of Nutrimite^™ snacking.”