Research & Development

Our key to success is entrepreneurship, expertise and creativity. This means continuous investments. Investing in know-how and in the latest technologies to continue developing vegetable varieties that stand out in reliability and quality, wherever in the world.

Plant breeding

Research & Development is the very core of our organisation. Here lies the origin of our innovative varieties, the breeding process. The combination of creativity and expertise is our strength. We have the expertise thanks to years of experience in breeding programmes and close cooperation with both the commercial department and local growers. Our international R&D establishments work closely together. Specific knowledge is therefore easily and quickly exchanged allowing us to come up with even better and new varieties.

Biotechnology

We still breed in the traditional matter, but we combine our knowledge and creativity with modern and highly advanced technologies. By doing so, we do not only speed up the breeding process, but we also ensure it runs a lot more efficiently.

Within Research & Development we distinguish two fields of application: biotechnological applications and biotechnological research. The first focuses on molecular marker techniques and cell and tissue culture. Molecular markers help us to identify plant genes, allowing us to select the plan for desired characteristics such as resistances. With cell and tissue culture we maintain and propagate elite germplasm, develop doubled haploid lines in-vitro and broaden the genetic pool of several vegetable crops.