For more than 40 years, PBS International has supported plant breeding and seed producing projects around the world. With our portfolio of standard pollination control bags (also known as ‘selfing’, ‘crossing’, or ‘isolation’ bags) and our range of larger pollination control tents, we are proud to work closely with plant breeders at the cutting-edge of crop science by supplying high-quality pollination control products that protect genetic purity and improve seed and crop breeding outcomes.
In addition to our standard product offerings, we also offer bespoke and custom design capabilities to solve different crop challenges. We recognise that plant breeding is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and so we work closely with customers across the world not only to suggest which products within our standard range are suitable for their specific needs, but also to adapt and design new bespoke and custom products that can solve their unique challenges.
And sometimes, if it becomes clear that a custom product has real potential to solve other customer challenges – we’ll add it to our standard offering.
Supporting customers through customisation
We have supported a number of customers with bespoke solutions to overcome specific or unique challenges. Here are just a few examples of projects we have supported on:
Improving Controlled Pollination
Product: Custom bags
Challenge: Allow the injection of pollen without puncturing or impacting the integrity of the bag.
Solution: Addition of a valve to aid controlled pollination
Suitable for: Cannabis and hemp, grasses, vegetables, flowering plants.
Taller tents
Product: Custom Citadel midi tent.
Challenge: Increase height of tents to accommodate taller crops
Solution: Extended structure that allow the tent to stand taller.
Suitable for: Maize, sorghum, sunflowers
Larger tents:
Product: Custom maxi tent.
Challenge: Customer needs flexibility to increase or decrease the area of crop isolations and to manage isolations side by side
Solution: Develop a modular tent system, with sizes available in 1.5m increments, adding the flexibility of detachable panels to allow for further segmentation
Suitable for: Row crops, grasses, vegetables, fruits.
Sleeves
Product: Custom bag, or ‘sleeve’
Challenge: Bag needs to placed around a specific part of a branch or vine.
Solution: Only weld two sides of the material, and leave the top and bottom open so it can be slid into position & secured.
Suitable for: Hops, kiwi.
Open sleeves
Product: Additional customisation to ‘custom sleeve’.
Challenge: Difficult to pull sleeve into position on vines that are large / have a lot of leaves.
Solution: Sleeve that is only welded on one side, so it can be wrapped around the vine where needed as opposed to being pulled into position before securing & sealing carefully.
Suitable for: Hops.
Coloured Bags
Product: Custom bag.
Challenge: Heat build-up and light transference have long been discussion points with plant breeding – especially when looking at global crop performance
Solution: Exploring different colours and materials to understand the effects of heat and light transference inside the bag, testing a range of colours on the spectrum to validate efficacy.
Suitable for: All Plants
Looking for a custom product?
Working with PBS International on a custom solution could not be easier. If you’re looking for quality pollination control, but our current bags or tents don’t quite suit your needs, simply contact our sales team directly who can best advise on next steps.
By giving our team more information about your plant breeding or seed producing project goals, the crop you’re working with, and the challenges you’re facing, our team can suggest different styles, sizes, and structures. They can also advise on which variety of our duraweb® material is most fitting for your project. All of our duraweb® materials offer superior protection against external contamination and blocks external pollen as small as 15μg, but some varieties offer specific benefits – such as our Fortis material which can withstand extreme weather conditions, or our more breathable Zephyr material which can be used both indoors and outdoors.
And customisation does not only apply to our bags – we also support breeders with bespoke tents, to support plant breeding and pollination control projects on a larger scale.
Get in touch
To get into our manufacturing pipeline and to kick off your custom pollination control journey today, please contact our team at sales@pbsinternational.com. By giving as much detail as possible, our team can provide pricing, expert insight and advice based on decades of experience in support plant breeders around the world achieve their goals.
We can’t wait to work with you!