One in four commercial sugar beets in the world is grown with the typical blue seeds of Belgian breeder SESVanderHave in. The company is one of the leaders when it comes to the breeding of new sugar beet varieties and focuses both on developing new resistance, sowing in test plots and producing seeds ready for sale. The breeder recently opened their new research center in the presence of the Belgian Minister of Agriculture Willy Borsus, among others.
The SESVanderHave Innovation Center - SVIC for short - was presented to the public 400 days after the start of the works. The complex counts about four football fields and can best be compared to a huge conservatory, divided into several compartments. This means that the company now has eight times more space than before to conduct research to improve their existing sugar beet varieties and develop new varieties. The breeding department and the disease research laboratory will be among the departments that have their new home at the SVIC.
At the breeding department employees practice manual cross selectionon the sugar beet plants. Cultivation is then continued under optimal conditions in the greenhouse. Temperature, light and watering the plants can accurately be determined here, with an eye to sustainability and ecology. The complex also has a number of separate quarantine compartments, where the varieties can be exposed to stressful situations.
Read more at VILT
Read more at VILT