Yigit Greenhouse becomes Turkey’s biocontrol champion

Yigit Greenhouse Co. is owned by Mr. Hamit Yigit and situated in Yozgat in Central Anatolia, about 180 km from Ankara. The company started in 2011 with 10 ha of high-tech greenhouses and expanded to a current surface of almost 20 ha. The company grows different types of tomato and cucumber. Initially, the growers relied entirely on chemical control. They quickly realized this was not solving their problems. Pesticide residues stood in the way of their export ambitions. In spite of high expenditure for purchasing and applying pesticides, the results were unsatisfactory. In 2013 the company started using biological control as its first line of defense in the context of an IPM strategy. With high quality Biobest products
and specialist advice from Antilsan, Biobest’s distributor in Turkey, the company quickly became one of Turkey’s largest users of biological control.
“Our company provides high quality products to leading domestic and international customers”, says company manager Mr. Özer Ayhan. “We export to different international markets including the Netherlands, Russia and England. We also supply leading Turkish retailers and high profile customers such as Turkish airlines. It is very important for us to be able to consistently provide products in line with our customer’s requirements in terms of absence of pesticide residues. With chemical control, this is very difficult to guarantee. Also, in spite of high costs for pesticides and labor to apply the pesticides, the result was certainly not always satisfactory. These were key reasons for us to start an ambitious biocontrol program in our crop planted during the last months of 2013.” Mr. Murat Cicekli, the company’s crop advisor, says :”Our number one problem in tomato is Tuta absoluta. Whitefly and spider mite are also important. Biobest proposed us a biological strategy to deal with these problems. The cornerstone of the strategy is the use of the predatory bug Nesidioris tenuis, which predates on Tuta eggs and whitefly. In addition to Nesidioris, they offer several tools to monitor and trap Tuta. Biological solutions to deal with spider mite and aphids are also provided”. Mr. Özer Ayhan and Mr. Murat Cicekli agree: ”Our collaboration with Antilsan and Biobest is excellent. Their technical advisors come and monitor our greenhouse on a regular basis. They have a lot of experience, and they are happy to share it with us at all times. As a sign of the trust we put in this collaboration, we have decided to print the Biobest logo next to our own Agrolife trademark on our tomato boxes. Agrolife is our premium trademark, sold with Globalgap and ITU quality certificates. With the Biobest logo on the box, we want to proudly show how biocontrol helps us guarantee a healthy and high-quality product. We are confident and continue to invest in our infrastructure and in the expansion of our product range”.

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