Meet the team and see the future at Fields of Innovation

27 August 2021, UK: Reopened for visitors, this autumn’s UK Syngenta Fields of Innovation event offers the perfect opportunity to reconnect with the whole vegetable crop team – to reaffirm friendships with familiar faces, and to meet new additions to the expanding team.

The Lincolnshire open days, on 13 and 14 October, near Surfleet, provides a first look see at some of the exciting new varieties and latest developments, which seek to deliver genuine value through innovation.

“Growers are at the heart of everything we do,” enthuses Kris Goen, who will be welcoming farmers and agronomists to the event for the first time in her new role, as Head of Vegetable Seeds for the UK, Ireland and Nordic countries.    

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“We’re always seeking varieties that can give our customers an edge – for the crops’ agronomy or produce marketing,” she said.

“Fields of Innovation is the chance to see what’s on offer now, discuss what’s in the pipeline and to forge relationships with growers that ensures they get the varieties that will best grow their businesses for the future.”

Along with coordinating the Field of Innovation demonstration site, Syngenta Technical Sales Representative (TSR), Louis Stokes, now focusses on the company’s comprehensive cauliflower portfolio.

“There’s now a Syngenta variety for quality cauliflower production 12 months of the year,” he highlights.

“We have three new varieties specifically designed for late autumn and early winter production on show in the field – Koten, Kashen and Lirren. Along with the new development variety, 3143, offering the powerful Syngenta clubroot resistance option for the summer/autumn production slot.”

New Syngenta TSR Brussels sprout specialist, Harry Twinberrow, has joined the team with experience from working in the packing and processing sector. On the Fields of Innovation site he’ll be highlighting, among others, the grower’s benefits of varieties Trimstar, Scorpius and Hey Melis.

“Trimstar is one of the new generations of Brussels sprout that is ideally suited to mechanical harvesting and crucial labour saving for brassica growers. The buttons are really clean, for fast processing and easy to use by consumers, with minimal waste in the field and on the shelf.

“These type of benefits for growers, retailers and consumers are a key focus for the Syngenta brassica breeding teams across all the vegetable crop sectors,” he added.

Along with the latest new members of the Syngenta team, the renowned brassica and onion specialist, Nigel Kingston, has continued his enthusiastic support of vegetable growers throughout the pandemic lockdown.

Eager to get back out into the Fields of Innovation, he’s using the site to demonstrate the unrivalled performance of broccoli variety Besty under a zero-nitrogen input system, alongside conventional nutrition levels.  “Besty has shown it is possible to look at new approaches to brassica agronomy,” Nigel advised.

“We continue to investigate the best options for all our varieties we introduce, enabling us to give guidance to growers to achieve great results.” 

A further attraction for salad growers to the site, TSR Rosie Frost – formerly known as Atwood, before marrying over the summer – has a wide array of baby leaf, wholehead and spinach varieties on show.

Exemplifying the customer focus and innovation of Syngenta breeding programmes, she says the new Grewger is a multi-headed lettuce with each evenly-sized leaf round and crispy, with frilly margins that makes it perfect for inclusion in a burger bun.     

 “On the site, the outstanding El Bravo and El Lucio spinach varieties for the autumn segment will also be at their best,” she enthused.