Bee Vectoring signs first customer in cranberry market
2023-06-28 08:50 ET - News Release
Mr. Ashish Malik reports
BEE VECTORING TECHNOLOGIES SECURES ITS FIRST CRANBERRY CUSTOMER
Bee Vectoring Technologies International Inc. is expanding into the cranberry market and has signed its first customer. The Wisconsin-based grower will be using Bee Vectoring's proprietary Vectorite with CR-7 (clonostachys rosea CR-7) biological fungicide and natural precision agriculture system on its cranberry field for the coming growing season.
"During the 2022 paid trial of the BVT system, we were able to demonstrate the effectiveness of our system on their cranberry crops in reducing fruit rot, improving fruit quality and increasing overall yield," said Ian Collinson, sales manager at Bee Vectoring. "As a result, the grower has doubled their BVT order for 2023. The BVT bumblebee system will be integrated on a portion of their cranberry acres, with plans to scale to additional acreage next season."
"BVT has been successful in establishing and growing sales in a number of markets including blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries," said Ashish Malik, chief executive officer of Bee Vectoring. "The addition of this new cranberry customer is further validation of BVT's growing momentum of our strategy to expand BVT's addressable market."
With more than 38,000 acres harvested annually, the United States is the world's leading cranberry producer, followed by Canada. Of which, Wisconsin is the biggest cranberry-producing state, with 21,000 acres of bogs across 20 counties growing an estimated 5.2 million barrels of cranberries a year (about 63 per cent of U.S. output).
"We are very impressed by the increase in yield we have experienced through utilizing the BVT system," said the grower. "Last year we saw a historically low fruit rot percentage -- reduced to 1.99 per cent compared to an average of 4 to 5 per cent that we typically experience, and I am confident that the BVT system was the main contributor to this efficiency. BVT's system allows us to significantly reduce the use of chemical sprays that often negatively impact beneficial organisms, both in and out of the soil, that are important for healthy development of crops and the overall yield."
Continued Mr. Collinson: "Growers like our new cranberry customer realize that our solution not only controls diseases, but also contributes to fruit quality, size and yield. Despite the fact that our CR-7 is registered for disease control, growers recognize that it can directly improve their ROI on several levels in addition to disease pressure situations, opening new opportunities for BVT in a variety of crops and markets."