Bejo held its second Lettuce Open Day on Wednesday, 21 February, when visitors had the opportunity to discover the great features of the entire Bejo assortment of lettuce varieties. The emphasis was on iceberg varieties BE24-149 and Bonice, the radicchio variety Raffaello and the variety Isabelita of babyleaf lettuce.
It was a cool, windy morning that greeted visitors, so many people were inside to learn about the new varieties and their features before moving on to the main attraction, the new lettuces in the demo field.
Bejo’s well-mannered, friendly technical and sales staff did an impeccable job of showing all visitors around the demo field. There were a lot of journalists on our event. An audiovisual report on organic farming was filmed, and a special was made about the Second Lettuce Open Day.
In iceberg lettuce, Bejo showed the variety Bonice for transplanting in late October and early November and harvesting in late January and February. In Radicchio there was the variety Raffaello, which can be harvested in late March and April, a time of the year when it is usually hard to find fresh radicchio and companies are forced to fall back on products in storage. Butterhead lettuce varieties Sotalis and Antedis have some fantastic features: They cover the entire production calendar, behave well in terms of tip burn and have good mildew resistance. In other types, like oak leaf lettuce, Bejo presented BE68-142, which offers a fine weight and volume, very good colour and strong resistance.
Bejo presents this set of colourful new varieties in response to the need for stronger resistance against diseases like mildew and as an answer to the requests of the processing industry, taking into account the increase of fresh, ready-washed, sliced produce.
The event was a success, due to the large amount of visitors who braved the cold and wind that remained steady throughout most of the morning. At about 2 in the afternoon the sun came out and the wind dropped; visitors could see the spectacular contrast of colours on display in the demo field crops. Later, all visitors enjoyed a delicious meal based on vegetable entrees and two kinds of paella, all accompanied by a local wine that proved to be exquisite.
