Research
Limagrain conducts the largest plant breeding and variety selection programme in the UK. Investing over £3.5m in the UK each year as part of Limagrain’s £125m investment worldwide, we breed and test across nearly all agricultural and amenity species. The programmes are based at three main UK breeding stations and across 100s of hectares of trials on 66 sites nationally.
Wheat
Limagrain’s wheat breeding is based at Woolpit in Suffolk. Simon Berry, Ron Granger and Paul Rowe and their colleagues run the UK’s biggest programme, whose recent successful introductions include Invicta, Gravitas and Crusoe.
Barley
For more than 60 years, the Rothwell breeding station has produced market leading winter and spring barley varieties. Today’s team, led by Mark Glew, are responsible for varieties such as Pearl and Cassata, and Westminster and Concerto.
Oilseed Rape
Jo Bowman and his colleagues breed oilseed rape varieties for the UK and Europe, as both conventional and hybrid types. Already with big success in Europe, the pipeline of new varieties for the UK shows strong potential.
Peas, Beans and Vining Peas
Milika Buurman leads the team based at Docking in North Norfolk who breed and select varieties for pea vining and the pulse industries. Top varieties such as Oasis and Anubis vining pea, Fuego spring bean and Prophet blue pea are all products selected by this programme.
Root and Fodder Crop
Limagrain UK breeding programme, based at Docking and managed by Will Pillinger, together with partner breeders produce varieties with step change performance such as Caledonian Kale, Lomond Swede and Blaze Fodder Beet.
Sugar Beet
Following the intensive testing in the UK, Limagrain identifies and introduces high sugar yielding varieties from the breeder Betaseed, the No.1 breeder in North America today. Recent introductions include Pernilla, Goya and Valeska.
Agricultural Grasses
Top varieties like Twymax and Eurostar Perennial Ryegrass are selected through a rigorous UK trials programme managed by Richard Camplin.
These top varieties become the basis of our high performance leys.
Amenity Grasses
The UK programme adds ‘top of the list’ varieties like Milan and Madrid Perennial Ryegrass to Limagrain’s exclusive offer each year, to ensure that the industry leading sports and amenity grass mixtures are top performing.
Maize
The market leading range of silage and grain maize varieties are selected and tested in the largest and most thorough trial site series in the UK. Our breeder Louis Vlaswinkel has introduced market leaders like Crescendo, Destiny and Sapphire in recent years.
Limagrain UK Ltd, Rothwell, Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, LN7 6DTTEL: 01472 371471FAX: 01472 371386