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at Tozer Seeds Direct
Tozers have been actively breeding vegetable varieties for over 70 years. It is true to say that breeding remains the core of our business and our breeding department is the home to many passionate and dedicated staff.
Breeding a new vegetable variety usually takes many years and so it is vital that the breeders have a constant dialogue with our product development and sales staff in order to determine the direction a breeding programme should take. Of course it is the feedback and knowledge of our customers which ultimately determine what we breed and their collaboration is vital.
Tozer breeders use both traditional breeding techniques and modern molecular biology (although we do not use GM) to produce new varieties.
Plant breeding combines science and creativity and plant breeders must use their understanding of genetics and horticulture plus their intuition to develop new lines. A programme usually starts with screening a wide range of existing cultivars and sometimes wild relatives for plants with desirable characteristics. Individual plants showing the desirable characteristics are selected and pollinated in subsequent generations until the required characteristics are stabilized. It is a long process and usually a decade before a new variety is released.
Most of our breeding is carried out in the UK, however clearly it is important to breed some types of vegetables to be suited to certain climatic areas outside of the UK, for this reason some of our selection work is now carried out in mainland Europe, Africa and America.
