| Maintype | Substrate |
| Crop | Tomato |
| Croptype | Truss Varieties |
| Variety | Futuno RZ |
Crop manual Futuno RZ (72-479 RZ)
Variety traits
Truss tomato
Resistance: ToMV/Ff:1-5/Fol:0,1/For/Va/Wi
Average fruit weight 140 - 150 g
- High production
- Generative habit
- Open, neat and tidy crop
- Good continued growth
- Domed fruit type
- Firm fruits
- Securely attached to truss
- Flat trusses
- Strong green parts
- Average plant length
- Labour-friendly
- Grows nice and straight along the string
Plant raising
Futuno RZ performs best when combined with a vigorous, generative rootstock like Emperador RZ.
Crop
Futuno has a generative habit, good vigour and sustained stamina. Thanks to its generative habit no extreme day/night differentials are necessary: aim for approx. 3°C. Do use a small and brief pre-midnight temperature decrease, though; extremely low pre-midnight temperature set points are not recommended.
Extreme afternoon peaks are not necessary. Get the plant up to colour every afternoon by means of the temperature. Make sure in early spring that you have achieved this as early as 3.00 pm. This will prevent that you have to prolong the afternoon temperature, as this costs extra energy and would weaken the crop and the trusses fairly quickly.
Futuno does not like cold heads during the night and in the morning. Too cold heads can turn the leaves in the head slightly blotchy. At normal plant temperatures, on the other hand,the crop colour is always a lovely green.
Temperature examples for spring and summer could be: pre-midnight set point 17°C, night 18°C, afternoon 21°C with in spring from about 11.00 am a 2 - 3°C increase for light.
The variety performs well when outside temperatures are higher: growth and fruit set both continue unabated. In the Netherlands in the summer of 2009, with summery conditions, we even noticed time and time again a small increase in the stem diameter, and the head of the plant was more vigorous.
The ideal stem diameter is 10.5 mm. Increase the temperature if it is more and reduce it if it is less.
The fruit quality of Futuno is very beautiful and the variety has strong green parts. Prevent getting very large fruits - tomatoes of more than about 150 g become more susceptible to micro-cracking.
Pruning advice
Prune everything at 4 until 20 January, followed by pruning everything at 5 tomatoes per truss from then on.
Truss treatment
Depending on the planting date, our advice is to treat 6 - 8 trusses. Bracing is easiest and carries the lowest risk of spreading disease.
Stem distance
With its open habit Futuno is very suitable for stem distances of approx. 33 cm in modern glasshouses but wider spacing is, of course, possible. In that case, be extra alert that the tomatoes do not get too heavy. With its open and neat and tidy crop and average crop length, there is no great rush to routinely start taking an extra leaf out of the head. Should the crop grow denser after all, and depending on crop growth and stem density, taking a leaf out of the head would be a good idea. This practice is virtually always a positive action in autumn.
Do not control the crop with watering at the time the extra heads are retained. Sufficient water at that time gives better and more uniform extra stems.
Feed
Futuno demands large volumes of water at times of high radiation. It is necessary, therefore, on days with high radiation to regularly stop a little later than usual or to put on a top-up round in the evening more frequently. The drying-out percentage should be the guide for starting and stopping times. Depending on the substrate and substrate volume, we assume an average rate of 8 - 10% in spring and autumn, and about 6 - 8% in summer. These are educated guesses only; exact percentages always depend very much on the situation on your nursery.
Aim for 8 mmol potassium in the slab analysis. Futuno absorbs potassium easily. If recirculating, 2/3 of the water EC should preferably be given in the form of fresh water.
The EC in the trickle irrigation should be 3.5 - 4.0 to start with. Gradually reduce this to 3.0. From early May a decrease for light of 0.2 - 0.3 in the water is possible if the light allows, always keeping the slab EC at 4.0 - 4.5 at least. Should the EC in the slab drop below these values, reduce the decrease for light and increase the basic water-EC.
Virus
In practical trials and grown as detailed here, i.e. with sufficient heat, no extreme pre-midnight decreases and sufficient feed, very few or no blotchy fruits and/or signs of PepMV occurred in 2009. When grown with considerably lower realised temperatures there were periodically signs of PepMV on the tomatoes, so do not take energy and fertiliser economies too far.
Crop advisors Rijk Zwaan, October 2009
Crop advice given by the seller is not binding. Descriptions and recommendations in this manual are as accurately as possible based on experiences in trials and practice. We do not, however, under any circumstances accept any liability for deviating results of the product grown in accordance with such information. The buyer needs to satisfy himself that this manual is suitable for his local conditions and the crop he intends to grow.