Syngenta opens new wheat breeding facility in UK

Syngenta opened a new, state-of-the-art plant breeding support facility at its Jealott’s Hill research and development site in Berkshire, UK, which is already producing new lines of wheat.

The new £2 million glasshouse facility, announced earlier this year, has been created to fit with the key aim of bringing better varieties to growers faster, says Syngenta portfolio manager for genetics for Europe North, Samantha Brooke. It complements Syngenta’s established wheat breeding centre in Cambridgeshire, she points out.

“By using a doubled-haploid technique to support traditional breeding, the facility aims to continue the Syngenta heritage of bringing varieties produced by this technique to market,” explains Mrs Brooke, “for example, the popular bread-making winter wheat variety, Gallant.

Looking ahead, Mrs Brooke says another example of a variety developed using this technique is Syngenta’s new candidate winter wheat variety, Cubanita.

According to Syngenta head of cell biology for Europe, Africa and the Middle East, Paul Drayton, specialist glasshouse and controlled environment rooms at the new Jealott’s Hill facility will help scientists to create perfect wheat growing conditions, supporting and accelerating traditional breeding programmes.
 
The doubled-haploid technique still uses plants from the first cross created by traditional plant breeding, but speeds up the production of uniform offspring, explains Mr Drayton, reducing it to just one year.

“This is an exciting new facility and represents another major investment in the site by Syngenta,” continues Mr Drayton. “The scientists who work here will help to speed up the process of bringing new crop varieties to the market, supporting farmers here in the UK and beyond.”