SATICOY : Company Plots Seeds of the Future

At the end of a dead-end street in Saticoy, a small compound of buildings is home to a multimillion-dollar international corporation that breeds plants.

The corporation, Petoseed, researches and produces hybrid fruit and vegetable seeds--seeds that have the best genetic traits of their parents--for farmers in 110 countries. The privately held company is the country’s largest such producer, according to Product Manager Gary A.W. Nepa.

Petoseed has its corporate headquarters, a five-acre test field, and its main distribution center in Saticoy, where tons of seeds are stored before shipment around the world. Because the hybridization process is so labor-intensive, actual production of the company’s seed takes place in countries where wages are low, Nepa said.

Fruits and vegetables grown from Petoseed’s hybrid seeds taste better, last longer or look prettier than standard seeds, he said. Hybrid seeds produce seedless watermelons, sweeter cantaloupes and taller pumpkins--the better for carving, Nepa said.

But the company’s research, conducted at stations across North America and Europe, is aimed at more than flavor or convenience, Nepa said. A growing portion of Petoseed’s research is directed at developing disease- and insect-resistant strains of fruits and vegetables.

“What disease resistance allows you to do is reduce the need for chemical applications of pesticides and herbicides,” Nepa said.

Petoseed recently developed three strains of lettuce that stand up to diseases and insects better than older strains, Nepa said. The new types of lettuce were created by breeding genetic characteristics in that combat the fungi that often can destroy a lettuce crop, he said.

The new strains supplement more than 20 other types of hybrid lettuce and 250 different varieties of hybrid fruits and vegetables for which the Saticoy-based company produces seeds.

Workers hand-pollinate plants to hybridize the best combinations of genetic traits, Nepa said. In nature, plants are pollinated randomly by the wind, and by bees and other insects.