We are the the breeders of all of the popular varieties of winter beans currently being grown in the UK. Our programme is the only one of its kind in the UK , it is dedicated to breeding in the UK to meet the exacting demands of our unique maritime climate. However our varieties have also been succesfully tested in other climates and this is a potential growth market for us.
We have carried on with traditional breeding methods and ensure that the maintenance of all of our established and new lines follows strict guidelines to ensure that purity and inbreeding is to the highest standard.
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| Beans are sown in the Autumn and caged protection is placed around them in early Spring. | Insect resistant netting is placed over the cages prior to flowering, to ensure pollination with a certain type of Bee, is only carried out under controlled conditions. |
We constantly thrive to improve the performance of our lines through improved agronomics and quality, frequently taking advice from end users. Established varieties in the UK offer consistant performance levels therefore an improvement on the existing plant module is now being achieved with increasing success. New lines are now coming to the forefront of this work and will soon make their presence known on farms.
One such new attribute we have been able to bring on is improved grain quality with potential for food use in the export trade. This is demonstrated below.
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| Pale skin, larger seeded - new type | Traditional darker skin type |
We have extensive on going trials work screening our advanced lines and testing their durability at different locations in the UK.
Winter Bean trial Lincolnshire
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| November sowing |
March emergence complete |
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| May flowers showing on early varieties |
August |
Please contact us for more details on plant breeding.
