Biogemma has recognized experience in wheat and maize research, based on over 10 years of collaborations in the frame of Genoplante, ANR and EU funded projects, and with major institutes worldwide. Our capable teams in genetics and genomics have developed significant skills in gene discovery, association and allelic characterization; they closely work with the up-to-date technological platforms available in-house: sequencing, arrays, bioinformatics, pathology and transgenesis. Biogemma concentrates its effort on genomic projects applied to field crops and breeding, and is still willing to take part to large-scale projects, using its technologies and know-how, to maintain networks of expertise and generate new innovative tools for breeding to develop tomorrow’s agriculture

Maïsadour Semences is a European breeding company with 3 major activities:

• A research activity aiming at creating maize, sunflower and rapeseed varieties adapted to the strategic territory of the company
• An activity of production and manufacture of field producer and seed processer
• A business marketing of seed produced on its strategic territory. Its market is all over Europe and the Mediterranean countries and is undergoing significant development in eastern countries and around the Black Sea (Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia).

Maïsadour Semences strongly believes necessary to pursue the path of innovation to better exploit the available land. Maïsadour Semences carries on research technical solutions to various agro-climatic situations as well as zones of high pressure diseases. Thus, as part of its research and development, Maïsadour Semences conducts field experiments in many countries, and in many various environments.

Caussade Semences is a self-supporting company present on the European seed market. The group Caussade Semences accounts for a turnover of 93 million Euros and employs 223 people in France and 76 in EU. Caussade Semences is a well known breeder in maize, sunflower, wheat, rapeseed, sorghum, soya and forage crops. More than 1000 farmers, mainly located in France, are involved in seed production. Five different seed plants are processing more than 1,5 million of maize or sunflower seed units and 30 000 tons of cereals. Caussade Semences is marketing more than 180 varieties in 34 different countries and 14% of the turnover is dedicated to R&D. Caussade Semences is involved in maize breeding since 1984. Many varieties were registered in different European countries with outstanding varieties like NAUDI, MAIBI, SEIDDI, FRANKI or CRAZI.

EURALIS SEMENCES is dedicated to research, production and commercialization of planting seeds and concentrates on maize, sunflower, rapeseed, sorghum and soybean. These activities are mainly developed on the European territory in its geographical boundaries, i.a. 27 countries of the European Community and CIS countries. EURALIS, who in the 50’s was the leader in introducing in France hybrid maize varieties, is rich of an historical know-how in every step of the seed activity. 13 % of the EURALIIS turnover are dedicated to research and development, with 10 breeding stations in Europe. For several decades, breeding programs have been developed with the five species mentioned above. For its programs of varietal creation, EURALIS has a collection of original and very diversified genetic material and has developed an experimentation network within the European territories (In particular for the maize several hundred thousand micro-plots). Moreover, EURALIS SEMENCES has, for several years, added to its breeding programs the techniques of genetical engineering and has gained important skills and know-how, allowing the company to ensure a valuable transition between molecular genetics and conventional selection. Talking about biotechnologies, EURALIS SEMENCES has chosen to work in partnership through BIOGEMMA, a company both funded by EURALIS and LIMAGRAIN. Thus, EURALIS benefits from the important know-how of BIOGEMMA, particularly recognized in the transgenesis and genomics fields. Finally, thanks to its important experience in the field of seed production (in maize, about 10.000 ha in Europe) and through its network of commercial subsidiaries in numerous European countries, EURALIS SEMENCES is able to efficiently promote research programs at the industrial and commercial scale.

Limagrain Europe holds the European Field seed business of the French cooperative Limagrain, 4^th largest seed company in the world. The activities in Field seeds represent Groupe Limagrain’s historical business with more than 40% of its turnover. Ranked number two in Europe for maize, forage crops and sunflower, and number one for wheatand barley, Limagrain Europe creates, produces and sells mainly maize, wheat, barley, peas, sunflower and rape which all together make Limagrain the reference multi-crop supplier to European farmers. Limagrain Europe has adopted a multi-species, multi-brands strategy and holds leading positions in Europe through the brands Advanta, LG and Nickerson. With 10 species covered, 29 plant breeding centres, and a high throughput genotyping centre, Limagrain Europe invests yearly about 14% of its turnover in research. Limagrain Europe has a strong expertise in plant genetics from genomics to agronomy trials with a strong emphasis in marker assisted selection. The genotyping laboratory of Riom masters high throughput genotyping technologies, and the biostatistic team has a strong experience in quantitative genetics to assist plant breeders to efficiently implement marker assisted selection.

Syngenta is a world-leading agribusiness committed to sustainable agriculture through innovative research and technology. The company is a leader in crop protection, and ranks third in the high-value commercial seeds market globally. Syngenta Seeds is running very active plant breeding programs in Field Crops (maize, sugar beet, wheat, barley, winter oilseed rape, sunflower) and Vegetables (tomato, melon, pepper, lettuce and brassicas). Syngenta is conducting trait discovery projects combining native traits and transgenic approaches. The Syngenta European Marker and Genomics platform and the European maize breeding programs are based in Toulouse. State of the art genotyping, gene validation and genetic analysis technologies are available to support discovery and implementation of native trait research across field crops and vegetables. Marker-assisted breeding has become an integrated approach to increase breeding efficiency and accelerate speed to market. Marker assisted breeding approaches are widely used to improve agronomic traits such as yield, drought tolerance, disease-resistance, herbicide tolerance as well as consumer and processing traits such as starch digestibility, oil composition, quality, baking and brewing quality and fruit quality. Syngenta Seeds has developed a very competitive maize breeding program where markers are used successfully to rapidly bring to the market high yielding hybrids with resistance to a number of biotic and abiotic stresses. Syngenta maize program is deployed across Europe and has state of the art capabilities and experimentation equipment to conduct precise phenotyping of corn germplasm.

KWS France is a French breeding company with strong breeding programs for maize, sugar beet and oilseed rape. The Centre de Sélection d´Alzonne of KWS France is specialized in maize breeding and has excellent field trial capacities. The group has strong expertise in maize breeding, utilization of genetic resources and implementation of applied breeding technologies like molecular markers and DH technology in its breeding program. As a member of the international KWS maize breeding team, KWS France has access to strong expertise in quantitative and molecular genetics, QTL and association mapping, bioinformatics, and genomics. KWS France can provide an efficient protocol for DH line production and High-Throughput SNP genotyping facilities for maize.

RAGT 2n SAS is a European leading breeding company of the RAGT group established in Rodez (Aveyron). RAGT 2n is specialized in breeding activities of a large panel of crops including corn, cereals, rapeseed, sunflower, forage crops, sorghum, soybean and pea. It has a recognized expertise (more than 40 years) in corn genetics by implementation of efficient germplasm development and evaluation enabling the marketing of valuable varieties providing genetic gain for both farmers and end-users on a combination of several quality and quantity traits (more than 200 for corn across Europe). This breeding activity involves know-how in genomic, genotyping, phenotyping and statistic research. RAGT 2n deploys its breeding effort on a network of 19 breeding stations and 2 genomic laboratories across Europe (France, Germany, UK, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Hungary and Ukraine) in order to answer to whole European seed market. The research staff is composed of 280 people among which 15% are highly graduated (engineers or PhDs).