Syngenta previews innovations in trial event series

Syngenta’s trial event series in Gilroy, California, wrapped a successful summer event after giving customers the ability to get hands-on experience with new vegetable varieties.

Trial Events were also held at Woodland, California; Pasco, Washington; Plainfield, Wisconsin; Hall, New York; Stanton, Minnesota and Naples, Florida.

“We are committed to providing our customers with the best genetics possible,” Sean Knapp, Syngenta's North American head of vegetables seed product marketing, said. “The customer feedback and insights we receive at these events help us fine-tune our research and development engine so that we can introduce new varieties that address local production challenges, while also addressing market needs.”

The events highlighted new varieties of beans, melons/squash, sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers and watermelon. Momentum is the name of a new fresh market bean showing consistent high yield in the Midwest and eastern United States, but especially in Florida and Georgia.

Syngenta's focus for melons and squash is to find varieties that can withstand a long shelf life. Harper-style melons and non-slip western shipper class were highlighted as well as ways to prevent problems such as cucurbit yellow stunting disorder and squash leaf curl virus.

Four sweet corn varieties were featured this year: GH3333 and GH9394 which are both showing promise in the Midwest and Pacific Northwest; Cabo variety is showing that it can adapt well to the California and upper Midwest/Northeast weather; and Aspire has shown improved insect resistance as well as tolerance to Touchdown and Liberty herbicides.

The Quali T 99 variety of tomatoes showed in the California trials that it has a strong yield performance and is a high quality fruit that can offer lower cull rates and medium-to-large- sized fruit.

The Trifecta variety of pepper has a flexibility in the fresh market as well as green and red processing markets. It offers a solution to the demand for high yields of quality, large fruit.

Finally, seedless watermelon varieties Captivation and Sweet Dawn were sweetly flavored and had intermediate resistance to Fusarium wilt race 1 and Anthracnose race 1 in trials.