Milestones
- 1955 - Establishment of our breeding station in Střížovice near Turnov
- 1958 - Otto Louda and Jaroslav Tupý began breeding apple trees
- 1966 - Start of breeding apple trees resistant to scab using Vf gene
- 2016 - 50th anniversary of breeding on the Station
- Until now, more than 50 legally protected varieties have been released from our program
Growing of our varieties in the world
The cultivars selected under this program are legally protected by a National Breeder‘s Certificate in the Czech Republic, Switzerland and Ukraine, Community Plant Variety Rights in the European Union or a Plant Patent in the United States. Propagation of IEB apple varieties requires concluding a license agreement and royalty payment.
In cooperation with international business partners, the annual sale of resistant varieties from the IEB makes over 1.35 million apple trees worldwide. The IEB apple varieties are grown on an area approximately of 4500 ha around the World, which is more than half of the total area of all apple varieties with resistance to scab.
Topaz and Red Topaz
The scab resistant variety Topaz and its mutation Red Topaz are one of the most successful:
today's "standard" for organic fruit farming
- the best-selling cultivar of scab resistant apple tree in Europe with annual sales more than 400,000 trees
cultivate worldwide on more than 2000 ha
the world's most widely used variety for further crossing in breeding programs
Opal® - UEB 32642
- the UEB 32642 variety, known under the trademark OPAL®, is grown worldwide on approximately 1000 ha and is registered in 60 countries around the world
- fruits have characteristic bright yellow skin with a crunchy flesh and an aromatic honey-sweet flavor
- through an extensive survey among US consumers conducted by an independent company Perishables Group, Opal® was rated as “Excellent”
- in years 2015 – 2018, more than 600,000 trees of the variety Opal® were sold in Europe and in total, almost 2 million Opal® trees have been sold in the world since the release on the market
Bonita
- characterized by very attractive, homogenous, bright red fruits and this feature is accompanied by a high and regular productivity and other positive growing characteristics
- almost 850,000 Bonita trees, intended particularly for ecological orchards, were propagated in the very first three years of the commercial production in South Tirol in 2015 – 2018
- advanced level of testing with very promising results particularly in the USA and South Africa
- sublicense agreements with other business partners were signed and these presume the growing of this variety in the territory of the Czech Republic, Austria, France, Hungary, Slovenia and the Benelux Union.
With the example of Bonita, the assumption that today’s quality of new apple varieties with diseases resistance is fully comparable to and sometimes even better than traditional non-resistant varieties, was fully confirmed. This significantly increases the demand for resistant apple varieties not only for organic production, representing in practice only about 5 - 15 % of the total production area, but also opens up new possibilities for integrated production with minimization of plant protection management.
Where to buy our varieties in the Czech Republic?
Selected varieties of apple trees from our breeding program are sold abroad and in the Czech Republic by Fytos, Radčická 86, 301 17 Pilsen and approximately 60 other nurseries.
Are you interested in growing our varieties commercially? Do you wish to get more information? We will be happy to get in touch with you and tell you about the possibilities.