Research Plant Breeding

The research of Plant breeding is organized in five main themes with emphasis on crop plants although whenever possible and useful Arabidopsis is included or used. Two themes are sub-divided into three and four smaller groups respectively.

Research focus

Our research focuses on the characterisation, conservation and use of genetic material. This means the following:

  • We are building collections of plants, in particular brassicae, barley, potato, tomato, lily and rose.
  • We are developing instruments for the detection, quantification and efficient utilisation of genetic variation for research into functional biodiversity and crop breeding.
  • We are developing methods to make plant breeding more efficient, such as molecular markers and other improved identification, selection and transformation methods.
  • We are developing statistical and computer programmes to enable efficient use of all data we are generating for crop breeding.

Academic and applied

Plant Breeding is a collaboration between the business unit Plant Breeding of Wageningen Plant Research and the Chair Group Plant Breeding.

In this way, we are combining academic scientific expertise with more applied, strategic expertise. This mix of various lines of approach enables us to convert fundamental knowledge into knowledge for further use by the industry.

Plant Breeding counts more than 120 employees together with a large number of guest workers. In addition, some 50 to 80 students are active.