b'ucts providing ease of harvest are the way to go. For growers, organizing, availabil-ity, and cost of harvest labour and prod-uct processing are among the biggest challenges today. We identified this trend many (25+) years ago, started to develop a genepool, then bred for varieties with ease of harvest features. Recently in U.S. we launched ease of harvest varieties Eiffel and Hancock under the High Rise broccoli brand. Over time, more growers will transition to machine harvesting and these ease of harvest features are a great addition to any broccoli growers product portfolio. One broccoli harvest crew stated after hand harvesting one of our High Rise broccoli brand varieties, thatharvesting High Rise is more pleasant and easier; better work pos-ture and goes much faster. Our aim is to completely convert our product pipeline into ease of harvest varieties. Also, in our breeding scope is the ease of floret-ting feature. This also makes it easier to process products and provides a productBroccoli varieties resistant (left) and susceptible (right 2x) to clubroot disease. (Photo courtesy of Syngenta)which is desired by consumers. florets. These broccoli heads are har- floretting. We are also developing varie-MS:This is correct, and also our com- vested and the floretting can be done inties that are a combination of multifloret pany is working on it. We have roughlythe field, simply by putting the heads onand tenderstem. Easy harvest types have two types: multifloret and easy harvest.a conveyer belt and having a blade makea more exposed broccoli head, with easy The multifloret broccolis are brandeda cut a few centimetres below the head.leaf pealing. Our company is develop-as Easybroc. Currently we have a vari- By this, the broccoli head will fall aparting these types, but the overall quality ety named Monflor. Multifloret broccolisin many smaller florets. Multifloret vari- is challenging, and also the yield is not have a flat but exposed head, with manyeties reduce a lot of labour costs for thealways reached because of the slim stem.EUROPEAN-SEED.COMIEUROPEAN SEED I 25'