Tozers are British seed breeders who develop new vegetable varieties for the UK and all around the world. Examples of the vegetables they work on include: cabbage, parsnip, celery, purple sprouting broccoli, peppers and pumpkins and squashes. In addition, they look to improve a range of herbs such as basil, rocket, coriander. When you see a vegetable described as ‘British bred’ in seed catalogues, the chances are it is one of theirs. Liz Dobbs paid them a visit at their HQ in Cobham, Surrey.

 

 
 

Improved herbs

Ten years ago years only a basic rocket salad leaf was available in seed catalogues but now there are lots of named varieties. While everyone likes the look and taste of the finely-cut, wild rocket the seed is difficult to germinate so the aim is to product a salad rocket that looks like the wild one but with better germination. To tell if you are growing a true wild rocket or a lookalike – check the flower colour, as the wild type has a cream flower when it bolts rather than yellow flower.

Basil is a popular potted herb but it does suffer from cold damage and weak stems. Tozers have bred some lines that are slower to flower – which is great if you want the leaves to harvest as a herb but, of course, the breeder needs the basil to produce seed so that makes it tricky! Tozers have bred a Thai basil type basil with a high oil content (a sign of a great pesto basil) which has an aroma of  mulled wine so is called ‘Christmas Basil’. I’ve tried it at home last summer - it makes a neat and attractive plant in leaf and flower – it did a have a spicy aroma when the leaves were bushed but of course it is a plant for summer not Christmas at it died back at the first sign of frost.

Coriander is good as an ingredient in a cut and come again mixed salad leaves but it tends to run to seed (bolt). In order to work on coriander, Tozers contacted gene banks around the world for samples and ended up with 200-300 types. After three years of growing on the different types and selecting them, they have narrowed the search down to around 50 varieties. They have now produced a coriander that from one sowing can be cut down and will re-grow FIVE times. The variety ‘Calypso’ is one of theirs that will go right through, while ‘Confetii’ is a garnish variety with very fine feathery leaves.

They discovered that some varieties have growing points very close to the ground – normally the growing point would be 2.5cm (1in) above ground. If your take the characteristic of the former and breed it into the other lines, you have the start of a desirable improvement.


Sweet peppers

They trial their sweet peppers and chilli peppers undercover. New developments to look out for include: sweet peppers that are much sweeter and smaller – the aim is to produce a fruit that could be put in a lunchbox – a bit like the snack cucumber. The small, sweet orange fruits are a big selling line in the USA. The long dogtooth peppers are popular with customers in supermarkets they have a thin wall and very few seeds. They are often sold at a premium yet they easy to grow compared to bell peppers.


Pak choi 

Tozers are one of the few breeders looking at cross hybridising pak choi. Stir frying is an increasingly popular cooking method so there is a demand for stir fry greens but pak choi need a lot of breeding work to make them suitable to grow in Europe. Their breeding aims are to make strains less likely to run to seed and to have wider petioles.

Pak choi is a good brassica for gardeners to grow as its short life cycle means it beats the usual brassica pests. It does get  a bit of flea beetle but the plants are short so it is easy to just throw a bit of fleece over the crop. Future developments include crossing red and white strains so you could have a pak choi with a white stem and red-leaved plant.


Runner beans

One of the major new veg of 2010 is the runner bean ‘St George’ with its vibrant red and white flowers, this variety has been snapped up by several of the major seed companies. St George is the result of breeding by Tozers and already they are working on another one ‘Georgina’ which has pink and red flowers. At the time of my visit in the summer, they were just getting the first crop of seed to send off to the National Seed List. The National List requires 5 kilos of seed to test before it will list a variety.


Other breeding work in the pipeline includes crossing French beans with runner beans – to get the runner bean flavour with the self-pollinating characteristics of French beans.

They are also looking at growing mangetout runners – which should save on the preparation in the kitchen.


Pumpkins et al 

One of their breeding aims is to break down the barriers between marrow, pumpkin and squash. Their work on butternut breeding is now far advanced (it is now grown commercially as a major ingredient in babyfood) so they are now looking at winter squash such as onion squash while stores well, is tasty and massively popular.

As far as pumpkins are concerned – they are looking at a pale one called ‘Paintball’ so  kids can paint faces on rather than carve them which seems to be preferable due to safety.


Going to seed

They produce seed which they then send on to drier places such as Italy to bulk up. It was a surprisingly messy business. Old greenhouses full of vegetable plants that have gone to seed are screened off to keep out insects. Seed collected is collected quite primitively  I saw lettuce and parsnip being dried off, the parsnip seed generates a lot of plant debris.

Seed of lettuce is sterile – there are no F1 lettuce. I saw lettuce plants  over 1.5m (5ft) tall looking quite weird with long purple/pink stalks, leaves then fluffy seed heads.