Breeding research at SLU

Plant breeding and animal breeding

Plant breeding is the changes that humans have made and are making to plants to adapt them to our needs. It can involve making the plant produce many and large fruits or seeds, be easy to harvest, withstand frost or drought, or contain low levels of harmful or unpalatable substances.

In animal breeding, there are two questions that breeders must ask themselves. The first is about the breeding goal: ‘Which animal is the best?’ Is it the cow that produces the most milk, the one that lives the longest or the one that both produces a lot of milk and has healthy hooves? The breeding goal sets the direction and determines which animals become parents. The second question is ‘How can we identify the best animal to improve future generations?’.

Units at SLU related to animal breeding

• Department of Animal Biosciences
• SLU Future Food

Units at SLU related to plant breeding

Research in plant breeding at SLU covers forest trees, horticultural and agricultural crops.

• SLU Grogrund - Centre for Breeding of Food Crops
• Department of Plant Breeding
• The Swedish National Gene Bank for Vegetatively Propagated Horticultural Crops
• SLU Partnerskap Alnarp
• Plant Link
• SLU Future Food
• Umeå Plant Science Centre, UPSC