Vegetables

"Vegetable" is a collective term for edible parts of plants. The majority are wild or cultivated annual or biennial herbaceous plants. The consumer values vegetables as nutritional complement providing vitamins and minerals. Vegetables can be divided into leaf vegetables, root vegetables, cabbages, flowering vegetables, bulb vegetables and fruiting vegetables. The breeders continuously adapt their breeding objectives to changing consumer demands, environmental conditions and needs of the trading industry.

Some decades ago, lettuce was still a typical spring vegetable. In summer, the then extant lettuce varieties showed a day-length response and bolted. It was only when plant breeding succeeded in developing day-length neutral varieties that lettuce could be cultivated and provided also in summer.

Cole crops (brassica oleracea) are another example of what plant breeding can achieve. While wild mustard had been known since Ancient Roman times, today's subspecies have been the work of breeders who crossed them into cauliflower, broccoli, kohlrabi (German turnip), savoy cabbage, white and red cabbage, brussels sprouts, kale. Later on, plant breeders have also concentrated on optimising the cultivation properties, especially by increasing yield performance and picking efficiency.

The development of hybrid systems for cole was a major milestone in vegetable breeding. Hybrid varieties showed a hitherto unknown uniformity and also enabled economically viable cultivation on marginal sites.

The answer of plant breeders to changing environmental conditions and increased disease or pest pressure is a rich choice of resistant varieties. Resistance in lettuce against downy mildew or clubroot of cauliflower, brussels sprouts or white cabbage do not only improve yield performance, but also the quality of the harvested product.

In response to the strong demand for convenience products, breeders have developed varieties with improved nutritional composition. The post-harvest treatment properties have also been improved, e.g. lettuce varieties that fall apart into equally sized leaves with only one cut. New tomato varieties with firm dense flesh that does not lose its juice when sliced are particularly convenient for sandwiches.

With steadily increasing abiotic stress as e.g. drought or lack of nutrients, or biotic stress as e.g. pests, new viroses and bacteria, resistance will continue to be the biggest challenge for plant breeding. In the light of the general trend towards minimized use of plant protection products, new research and breeding methods can help understand genes and their interaction with the environment. They also help to find ways to apply this knowledge in resistance breeding. In the future, however, breeding objectives will also be shaped by changed dietary habits and the needs of the processing industry.