Tozer Seeds’ 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 program 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 it can be a decade before a new variety is released.

Breeding a new vegetable variety takes considerable time and effort which means it is vital that the breeders have a constant dialogue with our product development team and sales staff around the world to monitor the direction of a breeding program.

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 the USA.