News

Rijk Zwaan Afrisem is breeding African Hot Peppers. The goal is to develop high yielding habanero varieties with improved resistance packages for better crop security. There is a strong focus on pungency but also on aroma, earliness and improved shelf life.

Rijk Zwaan seed is produced all over the world but every single seed, no matter where it is produced or eventually sold, is first sent to the Netherlands for centralized quality control - cleaning, testing and quality management. In 2018 Rijk Zwaan opened the Seed Quality Centre (SQC) – a dedicated new facility with laboratories, climate controlled cells and its own greenhouse.

Holland Greentech (HGT) are Rijk Zwaan distributors in Rwanda. Recently they held a melon-tasting event as part of an effort to bring new crops to farmers in that country.

Perhaps you know that Rijk Zwaan is a vegetable breeding company based in the Netherlands, and that Rijk Zwaan is ranked as number 4 in the world for vegetable seed, but did you know that Rijk Zwaan is also a family owned

Rijk Zwaan supplies quality vegetable seeds, but we know that sometimes extra support is needed to make a success of the crop.

The future of farming and food production is a shared responsibility. As a vegetable breeding company, we not only bring new and innovative vegetable varieties to market, but also recognise our responsibility to contribute to sustainable food systems worldwide. That is why we continue to engage with local growers and other partners in the food chain to help feed the world and stimulate vegetable consumption. This story about HortIvoire in Ivory Coast is an example.

In the space of just a few years, the fungus Stemphylium – and in particular Stemphylium vesicarium – has become one of the biggest challenges for spinach growers worldwide. Vegetable breeding company Rijk Zwaan’s spinach breeding programmes are focussed on developing varieties that are resistant to this fungus. The initial results from an ongoing study by Washington State University in the USA have now confirmed that this focus over recent years has resulted in an assortment with a good number of spinach varieties with a high level of resistance to Stemphylium vesicarium.

Although Rijk Zwaan closed its most recent financial year with a slight drop in revenue and profit, largely due to the strength of the euro, the company is continuously expanding its workforce and investing heavily in research and breeding of vegetables.

The research on mildew resistance in lettuce has received a considerable boost. On October 10, the American Foundation of Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) awarded the first research grant to the Crops of the Future Collaborative. This involves an amount of 2.5 million US dollars (2.2 million euros) for the next five years. The award was received at the UC Davis Genome Center in California.

With effect from 02 July 2018 the International Bremia Evaluation Board Europe (IBEB-EU) has named two new official races of downy mildew in lettuce, Bl:34EU & Bl:35EU.