The soft fruit and potato varieties bred at SCRI are widely known to farmers and consumers alike but SCRI boasts another highly successful breeding programme that is not so well-known – brassicas.

The brassica family – swede, turnip, kale and forage rape – have a range of uses from culinary varieties found in the shops to feed for livestock to being grown as cover for game birds.

Brassica breeding, led by Dr John Bradshaw, has been carried out at SCRI in partnership with Limagrain UK (formerly Advanta Seeds) since 1991 and during that time has successfully brought nine new varieties to the market.

Three dual purpose swedes – Brora, Invitation and Virtue – suitable for both culinary and livestock use; two kales – Caledonian and Grampian – used for game cover and dairy cattle feed respectively; a traditional Scottish turnip, Massif; and forage rape variety Interval – both used for livestock feed were the culmination of earlier research at SCRI.

However the SCRI Limagrain UK partnership did not restrict itself to only developing existing breeding work but also embarked upon a breeding project to produce new swede varieties suitable for both culinary and livestock use which resulted in two such varieties, Gowrie and Lomond, recently being brought to market.

Dr John Bradshaw is due to retire from SCRI next spring however the strong partnership he has founded with Limagrain UK will continue with future new varieties undergoing field trials at the Invergowrie site.

More information from:

Lorraine Wakefield, Information and Online Service Officer, SCRI, Invergowrie, Dundee, DD2 5DA. Tel: 01382 562731 (switchboard).