The tulip is the national plant of the Netherlands. Abroad they call us the ‘tulip people’, or the people of the ‘tulips’. But what do we actually know about this Dutch pride? What secrets does this flower bulb carry?
Cultivation of tulips
Busloads of tourists are transported every spring along the bulb region to admire the typical Dutch tulip fields. And it must be said: the fields full of brightly colored flowers look beautiful. But tourists must be quick: tulips only bloom for a few weeks, on average from April to mid-May. At the height of their bloom, the flowers are decapitated without scruple. Special cutting machines race through the flower beds to cut the flower. The stem remains with leaves. This leaves more food for the underground sphere. Because it needs all the energy to grow new little balls.
After the bulbs have been harvested in the summer, the big bulb peeling can begin. This classic holiday job for students involves removing roots and old skin from the bulb, and loosening newly grown small balls (clusters) from the old, larger bulb. Those large bulbs are for sale and decorate our garden and planters. The small bulbs are dried and go back into the ground in the autumn to grow and reproduce.
Growing tulips in nets
Bulbs are best grown in sandy soil. They are easy to harvest from the loose sand, and you can quickly shake off the sand. After harvesting in June, keep the bulb clean and dry until it can go back into the ground in the autumn. But sandy soil in the Netherlands is limited. To also use clay soil, a system has been developed in which bulbs are planted in nets. Such a net is a kind of nylon stocking of enormous dimensions, which is filled with the bulbs in the ground. When harvested, the net is pulled out of the ground in its entirety and the bulbs appear without much stuck-on soil. You can even grow bulbs in the Zeeland clay. In the 10 years that growers now use this method, the growing area of bulbs has increased by 1/4.
Successful immigrant
The symbol of the Netherlands is not originally Dutch. And actually it is a lily. The flower came to the Netherlands around 1593 via Kazakhstan and Turkey, where the tulip bloomed. The botanist Carolius Clusius planted the bulbs he had taken from a trip in the Hortus Botanicus at the University of Leiden. Since then, the ‘Tulipa’ has been listed here as a genus of the lily family. When the flower was discovered by the general public, it became so loved for its beauty that a veritable tulip craze arose. Anyone who had some estate had to have the bulb in their garden to show off the flowers. This led to a crazy tulip trade, in which the bulb became a tool of speculation. In the early 17th century, the bulbs were traded as stocks. Prices were paid for one sphere with which you could buy several canal houses at that time. In 1637 the market collapsed and successful traders became penniless. But the economic value of the tulip bulb had been finally discovered. And the tulip turned out to do well in our cold, windy climate. The bulbs thrive, especially on the sandy soils of the coastal region, where the sea wind provides extra cold. The Bollenstreek arose around Haarlem, still known as the epic center of our national pride. But nowadays most tulips are also grown elsewhere in North Holland, and further in the Flevopolder, the Wieringermeer and West Friesland.
Sickbay
If you look closely, you will always see people scurrying through bulb fields. What are they doing there in this mechanized age? They look for sick tulips and pull them from the field before their disease spreads to a nearby tulip. The tulip, like any bulbous plant, is susceptible to viruses and fungal infections. The tulip mosaic virus, for example, causes leaf discoloration and premature death of the flower. Often diseases cannot be recognized in any other way than with the naked eye. That is why growers look every day for blisters or spots on the leaves. To help growers recognize symptoms, the Flower Bulb Inspection Service (BKD) in Lisse has an infirmary full of bruises: a small greenhouse where plants with warts thrive. In other greenhouses there are 6,500 samples of some 450 tulip varieties. If diseases occur there, growers can burn their characteristics on their retina at home.
In a laboratory, BKD employees test juice samples from ground tulips for the presence of viruses. But prevention is always better than cure. Only that is virtually impossible. The major culprits that transmit most tulip diseases are bugs such as nematodes and lice. Nematodes are controlled by, among other things, flooding the field after harvesting. Lice have been sprayed with heavy pesticides for years. But because they pollute the groundwater, growers are increasingly bound by restrictions thanks to Dutch and European legislation. They try to reduce the amounts of pesticides by using less environmentally harmful alternatives. For example, by spraying the flowers with a mineral oil. It clings to lice that otherwise easily move from tulip to tulip, including the viruses they carry. Growers also spray their flowers less preventively with chemicals, but only when really necessary.
Solid flour
A rusty penny or a drop of chlorine in the vase to keep a bunch of tulips good? Not necessary. All tulips want is a lot of water. The flowers adapt to the vase in which they stand. They don’t like to move. For example, a different incidence of light disrupts their growth direction. So do not move the vase, and refill a lot. Then tulips will last about 10 days.
Contemporary tulip trade
While people started eating tulip bulbs during WWII out of pure poverty, the flower bulb can also lead to great wealth. At least, that’s what a number of wealthy investors hoped a few years ago. Were they seduced by the romance of the 17th-century merchants who made fortunes with the tulip bulb? Had they learned a lesson from the tulip mania of 400 years ago? As in 1637, the tulip trade completely collapsed in 2003, leaving investors penniless. In 2003, the Novacap investment fund raised 85 million euros from various investors, including former Philips CEO Cor Boonstra and publisher Willem Sijthoff. The investment in new tulip varieties seemed lucrative. The fund would buy up bulbs of the money and resell them immediately on the day of purchase, with a profit. The bulb price was pushed up enormously, but that resale did not happen. As a result, the tulip brokerage bureau SBC went bankrupt, the Novacap fund went under, the tulip bulb market collapsed and the investors were able to whistle for their joint investment of 85 million euros.