Research
Plant Breeding and Variety Selection
Limagrain conducts the largest plant breeding and variety selection programme in the UK. Investing over £3.5m in the UK each year as part of Limagrain’s £215m investment worldwide, we breed and test across nearly all agricultural and amenity species. The programmes are based at two main UK breeding stations and across 100s of hectares of trials on 66 sites nationally.
Wheat
Limagrain’s wheat breeding is based at Woolpit in Suffolk. Ed Flatman, Simon Berry and Paul Rowe and the wheat breeding team manage the UK’s biggest wheat breeding programme, whose recent successful introductions include Crusoe, LG Spotlight and LG Skyscraper.
Barley
For more than 60 years, the Rothwell based breeding station in Lincolnshire has produced market-leading winter and spring barley varieties. Today’s team, led by Mark Glew, are responsible for varieties such as Concerto, LG Diablo and Westminster.
Maize
The market-leading range of maize varieties are selected and tested in the largest and most thorough trial site series in the UK. We have 6 sites with 10-12,000 plots. Our breeder Louis Vlaswinkel has introduced market leading varieties like Ambition, Glory, Prospect and Pinnacle in recent years.
Oilseed Rape
Georgia Mitrousia and her colleagues breed oilseed rape varieties for the UK and Europe, as both conventional and hybrid types. Already with big success in Europe, the pipeline of new varieties for the UK shows strong potential with new conventional introductions such as Aspire, Acacia and Aardvark and fully loaded hybrid TuYV resistant breakthroughs, Aurelia, Ambassador and Artemis.
Agricultural Grasses
Top varieties are selected through a rigorous UK trials programme managed by Richard Camplin based at Witham St Hughs in Lincolnshire. Our variety portfolio now includes grass and clover varieties that deliver not just yield but superior nutritional value. These top rated varieties form the basis of our high performance brands; Sinclair McGill, Monarch, and LGAN (LG Animal Nutrition) grass seed mixtures.
Roots and Fodder Crops
The Limagrain UK breeding programme is based at Witham St Hughs in Lincoln headed by Richard Camplin, who, together with partner breeders, are producing new varieties of forage rape, stubble turnips, kale and fodder beet.
Peas, Beans and Vining Peas
Woolpit in Suffolk is the center point of all UK based pulse trials, with selection of early generation spring and winter pulses aided by multiple sites located across the country. Will Pillinger leads the global multi-species Pulse Breeding Programme which targets specific markets in the UK, Europe, Canada and USA. Top varieties such as Oasis vining pea, Tundra winter bean, and Prophet, Kingfisher and LG Stallion blue peas are all products produced by this programme.
Amenity Grasses
New varieties are selected and trialled at the STRI to ensure that they perform to the highest standards under both sports and lawngrass regimes. Comprehensive testing ensures that our MM branded mixtures for sports professionals are top performing and deliver the finish top sports clubs demand.
Sugar Beet
Following the intensive testing in the UK, Limagrain identifies and introduces high sugar yielding varieties from the breeder Betaseed, the No.1 sugar beet breeder in North America. Recent introductions include BTS 4100 and BTS 3325.
Seed Production
Limagrain UK is a leading producer of cereal, pea, beans, brassica and grass seeds within this country for both domestic requirements and export markets.
Working with you
We regard seed production as a two-way partnership between ourselves and the grower each looking after the interests of each other with the intention of achieving a mutually beneficial yield and quality from the contracted area.
We welcome enquiries from growers willing to go the extra mile required to produce seed crops to the highest possible quality standards. In return we offer highly competitive contract terms and market leading varieties capable of producing high seed yields. In addition we offer full support and agronomic advice.
If you have land available meeting the specific crop requirements, a professional attitude to quality seed production and facilities for conditioning and storing the seed post-harvest then we look forward to welcoming you as a Limagrain UK production partner.
You can also download the Post Harvest Pesticide & Crop ID Declaration Form here.
Nigel Watson, Field Production Manager
Meet the Team
Your Seed Production Team are Mark Haith, Mary-Jane Dean, Nigel Watson, Victoria Brant and Richard Ogden.
Pictured here (left to right) are Mary-Jane, Victoria, Nigel and Richard.
Get in Touch - Yorkshire, NE & Scotland
Responsible for seed contracts in Yorkshire, Northern England and Scotland.
Please call me on 01472 370159
Victoria Brant – Email:
victoria.brant@limagrain.co.uk
Get in Touch - East & Sugar Beet
Responsible for seed contracts in the Eastern counties and sugar beet.
Please call me on 01472 371471
Nigel Watson (out of hours 07776 178 189) or email:
nigel.watson@limagrain.co.uk
Get in Touch - Central, Sth, West England
Responsible for herbage and forage seed contracts, also all seed contracts in Central, Southern and Western England.
Please call me on 01472 371471
Richard Ogden (out of hours 07801 245 230) or email:
richard.ogden@limagrain.co.uk
Exports
We are a leading producer and exporter of forage brassica and fodder beet seeds. We currently supply customers in over 25 different countries with climates and agricultural practices as diverse as Iceland, Finland and Norway in the Northern Hemisphere through Africa and into Australia and New Zealand in the Southern Hemisphere.
Our team of production, technical and logistics personnel are fully conversant with the needs and requirements of customers overseas and we work closely with the UK Government Plant Health and Seeds Inspectorate and the Official Seed Testing Station for England and Wales (OSTS, Cambridge) to ensure that all the seed supplied meets the exacting standards for individual countries.
All export business is carried out under the Rules and Usages of the International Seed Trade Federation for the trade in seeds for sowing purposes. Where standards are laid down we supply seed as certified blue tag under the rules of either the European Union, or (for non-EU markets) the OECD Schemes.
As an initial point of enquiry for our products and services you are invited to contact us using the e-mail address below and Toby Green, our Exports Sales Manager will then provide you with a specific answer to your enquiry: toby.green@limagrain.co.uk
Trial Seed
Please note trial seed is only available for small plot trials for research or demonstration purposes and is not available to farmers. The forms are for use in the UK only. Enquiries from outside the UK should be addressed to their local Limagrain contact.
Unfortunately, the interactive PDF only works on Internet Explorer, if you are using any other browser you would need to download the PDF to your local files and open it from there in order for it to work. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Otherwise, please print and attach to email: glynis.jenkinson@limagrain.co.uk or fax in the form to 01472 371195. Any further problems please contact Glynis Jenkinson on 01472 370106.
