nuvance’s new research farm

Located along the R511 in Zoutpansdrift a mere 15km outside the town of Brits in the North West province this 11.5ha property is Nuvance’s first wholly owned research farm. After having leased a property not far from the current premises since 2012, the decision was made to purchase the larger property in 2019 to enable the necessary infrastructure investments and expansion. The motivation was also to establish a dedicated site for trialling our new and current varieties in a key vegetable production area.

This facility is mainly used for our breeding, screening, and yield trials as well as our annual Farmers’ day. Brits is an important vegetable production region, and together with its mild climate it was the ideal location to establish such a facility as the majority of vegetable crops are being cultivated in the greater Brits area. Also, the prevailing disease pressures make it ideal to test for the resistances of our new varieties here.

This site also plays an important role in the facilitation of training of our internal staff members on newly launched vegetable varieties as well as throughout the development process. This ensures the continued exchange of knowledge within our team thereby building our capacity to serve you, our growers better.

Over the past two years we have made significant upgrades to the property to suit our research needs and additional projects are currently being planned. Such as a greenhouse and shade net complex, as undercover vegetable production has significantly increased over the past couple of years.

Agriculture is constantly changing as we know it and through investments in research facilities such as this, we want to ensure our products and services remain relevant to you, our growers.

article by dr quintin muhl

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