March 23, 2009

Cambridge-based RAGT Seeds Ltd has invested GBP3.5 million (US$5 million) into its new facility at Ickleton, Essex, to continue its work on improving wheat varieties.

The new unit includes polytunnels and glasshouses, and will have about 8,000 sq metres under cover. It consists of a main building containing modern lab equipment to increase the breeding process through DNA marker technology and quality analysis, in order to support the firm's grain-breeding efforts in the UK and in mainland Europe.

About 58 hectares of surrounding land will be used for the wheat-breeding programme and trials, and all high-grade seed production will be based there, said commercial manager Simon Howell.

Cereal genotyping manager Peter Jack said advances recently made in understanding human genes have contributed to crop science.

Jack said technology is driven by human genetics and it can be translated into plant work, and benefits from the former can be applied to wheat but it will take a long time to breed better varieties because the wheat genome is five times larger than the human one.

European cereal breeding manager Richard Summers said RAGT now have markers for fusarium head blight, soil-borne mosaic virus, orange blossom midge, eyespot, brown and yellow rust, and it is beginning to disentangle septoria.

Altogether, markers for 40 traits, including certain aspects of grain quality, have been identified, he said.

Summers said RAGT's aim is to produce strong varieties and they are looking for key characters that lead to stability in performance.

Everything is targeted at putting products with very high yield together with genes that have perfect disease resistance and quality, said Summers, adding that at the moment yields are increasing 0.5-1 percent a year and he do not see that stopping.

RAGT Seeds Ltd is part of the RAGT Group, which has been supplying European farmers since 1919 and is one of Europe's leading seeds businesses.