Crop breeding

Niab staff member crossing wheat

Niab carries out breeding and development in agricultural crops, utilising its unique genetic resources. 

Niab’s experience in field testing, analytical services, genetics and breeding all help to develop improved agricultural crop varieties.

Our emphasis is on developing:

  • ‘Orphan’ crops – these often offer great potential, with slow varietal improvement and uptake to date due to a lack of previous investment in research and development
  • Novel crops – combining genetics and agronomy to rapidly improve those untapped plant species with the most potential for sustainable productivity
  • Niche varieties – high-value specialist markets within otherwise commodity crops