Dümmen Orange, in collaboration with IribovSBW, has developed a new method to significantly speed up the propagation of tulip bulbs. The tissue culture method increases the multiplication rate of a single tulip bulb from three to several thousand per year. This ground-breaking result brings new opportunities for the tulip sector.
After the acquisition of Hobaho by Dümmen Orange two years ago, the existing collaboration with IribovSBW has intensified to speeding up bulb propagation. The newly developed laboratory-based propagation process uses starting material from one single tulip bulb. After about one year, the tissue culture-derived small bulbs were allowed to further develop in a soil mixture to get to bulb sizes ready for flowering. Last spring successful flowering trials took place in the open field at the Hobaho Testcentrum Siergewassen (Ornamental Crops Trial Centre) in Lisse, the Netherlands.
Universities, research institutes and commercial laboratories have been working on speeding up the propagation of tulip bulbs for many decades. At present the average multiplication factor of a flower bulb is three per growing season, a figure that has barely risen at all since the introduction of the tulip in the 16th century. As a result, the development of a new commercial assortment and sustainable cultivation has been a very slow process up to now.
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