Vegetable crops
BASF offers the growers of South Africa a multi-crop protection package that will suit all the key crops on their farm, including potatoes, tomatoes and onions.
Onions
In South Africa we grow mostly brown, white and purple(red) onions. Onions contain phenolics and flavonoids that have potential anti-inflammatory, anti-cholesterol, anti-cancer and antioxidant properties. Onions have been cultivated for more than 7000 years. The ancient Egyptians worshipped onions. Roman gladiators were rubbed down with onions to firm up their muscles.
http://www.rsa.co.za/product-lines/vegetable/onions
Potatoes
South Africa's potato output has grown strongly over the past decades, from 1.2 million tonnes in 1990 to a record 2.5 million tonnes in 2015. In the same period, the potato farming area actually declined, from 63,000 ha to 52,000 ha. Most of the 532 farms growing potatoes (2017) are relatively large farms, increasingly under irrigation (now around 80%), with yields averaging around 34 tonnes per hectare.
Tomatoes
Table tomatoes are one of the most cultivated crops in the world and there are several hundred varieties of tomato available. The fruit is rich in lycopene and Vitamin C. Tomatoes are used in various ways. Ripe tomatoes are consumed fresh and are also be fried or used in cooking. They are also sundried or processed into tomato sauce, puree, powder and soup or as canned tomatoes, chutney and jam.
The tomato is a perennial but grown as an annual plant grown for its fruits. It is a branching herbaceous plant with hairy, weak trailing stems. The leaves are hairy and vary in size. The plant bears yellow flowers in clusters. The fruits are round to lobed and they vary in size and colour, ranging from red to pink or yellow when ripe. The plant produces flat, slightly curved and hairy light brown seeds.
