Tulip market in the Netherlands
National Tulip day
It’s the most widely recognised symbol of the country that grows three billion of them every year. It’s hardly surprising that they dedicate a day to the national flower: in 2025, celebrations fall on January 18.
Grown in the Netherlands since the sixteenth century, the tulip became so popular in the seventeenth century as to spark an outbreak of ‘tulip mania’ – a frenzy of speculative trading that saw the most sought-after bulbs sell for up to ten times the then price of an average house.
Fortunately, such days are past, yet its legacy remains: the tulip industry has become a significant contributor to Dutch horticulture in the 21st century. Growing the colourful bulb generates around €320m in export sales every year and, together with other flower bulbs such as daffodils, hyacinths and crocuses, gives the Netherlands a 90% dominance of world trade in this sector.
So where better for FertiGlobal to conduct a trial of one its innovative EnNuVi Technology-based products, to assess its performance in tulips and compare it with reference treatments?
Ianus is the newest member of the EnNuVi Technology product portfolio. EnNuVi, remember, an acronym of Enhance, Nurture, Vitalize – is a patented Technology that has a remarkable effect on crops, a unique ability to trigger and control plants’ defence and resistance systems.
EnNuVi Technology-based products are ahead of the curve in terms of the ‘next big thing’ in bioactivation products, for they can actually control the switching on and switching off of the plant’s genes. By activating and deactivating genes involved with stress – whether that’s stress caused by external factors (abiotic stress) that might make the plant more susceptible to diseases, or the stress caused by disease itself – any one of the growing portfolio of EnNuVi products can help significantly reduce conventional pesticide use.
Ianus, in common with its EnNuVi stablemates, combines active polyphenols and selected natural ingredients to help the crop grow, healthy and strong, and to achieve its full yield potential. These polyphenols, when combined withessential nutrients into an active ingredient, namely, a nutrient-polyphenolic-molecule (NPM), bioactivate the plants. In the case of Ianus, the active ingredient manganese-zinc-polyphenolic-molecule is the ‘superpower hero’.
The manganese-zinc-polyphenolic-molecule has an important role in many of the plant’s essential biochemical processes, including photosynthesis, nitrate conversion and hormone signalling. But in a stress context, it has two further roles with big implications.
First, it ‘mops up’ what are known as ‘reactive oxygen species’, or ROS. Found in all living organisms, these are a natural byproduct of oxygen metabolism and are usually ‘used up’ in other processes. Sometimes, however, the balance can become upset – and in excess, ROS can cause significant damage to cells, DNA and proteins.
The other significant role for the manganese-zinc-polyphenolic-molecule is in plant defence: it helps the plant in its constant battles with disease-causing pathogens. A bioactivated plant defence system is like a well-equipped army.
As a result, better growth, development and yield. The manganese-zinc-polyphenolic-molecule protects chlorophyll from degradation so that the plants can keep a high photosynthetic activity even when under stress.
It’s why Ianus is such an exciting product to add to the portfolio of EnNuVi Technology-based products. It’s also why we were thrilled to put it through its paces in a trial organised by CEBECO, a subsidiary of the widely known and well-respected Royal Agrifirm Group, one of the largest agricultural cooperatives in the Netherlands.
Conducted in spring 2024, the trials involved the tulip varieties Jumbo Pink and Red Ranger. In three separate trials, the aim was to examine the effectiveness of Ianus against a variety of other foliar treatments; to evaluate the efficacy of Ianus on bulb production after the second year of cultivation; and to assess the effectiveness of Ianus (and in combination with other EnNuVi Technology-based products) in overall bulb production.
Tulip Trial
Observations showed Ianus could improve crop vitality, achieving by the end of the season the highest index of vigour across 13 different treatments.
Tulip Recultivation
Ianus improved crop vitality, reaching the highest vigour index at the conclusion of the trial.
In measuring the growth factor, i.e. the total weight of the crop/total weight of plantation, Ianus showed better results than any other treatment, indicating how Ianus can increase the crop’s overall productivity.
Our conclusion?
This is a great example of an EnNuVi Technology-based product achieving the overall FertiGlobal objective: reassuring growers that active biological products (keyword: bioactivation) can deliver as good, if not better, results than conventional treatments.
It’s one step at a time in our mission to help farmers produce better crops by using fewer harsh chemicals. And a great demonstration of our intention to demonstrate that FertiGlobal products aren’t just there to help grow food more responsibly, but also the many other products – fibre and flowers to name just two – that we expect agriculture and horticulture to provide.
At FertiGlobal the sustainability and quality across all forms of agriculture are in our sights.