April 2020 - 22

VARIETY INFORMATION
A Passion
forBREEDING
GARDEN PERFORMANCE IS
THE END RESULT
Most breeders will agree that
all commercial ornamental plant
breeding intended for the landscape,
regardless of genus and species,
must be done with final garden
performance in mind. While new
selections may be easier to grow or
have an amazing new flower pattern,
if the end user does not have a
positive experience, the variety will be
short lived in the market. Breeders go
to great lengths to get their selections
outside and growing under typical
garden conditions - sometimes
by building large, private trial
gardens and by partnering with large
landscape installations or botanical
gardens - to gauge what a home
gardener could reasonably expect.
" Garden performance " applies to
With a drive for innovation, breeders aim to
set the bar higher and higher when it comes
to petunia and calibrachoa genetics.
BY BART HAYES
P
etunia and calibrachoa
are two of the biggest
genera in our industry
today. As a flower breeding
company, Westhoff has focused
on distinguishing itself from
their competitors by developing
varieties that exceed the diversity
that other breeders typically
introduce. The Crazytunia series
of petunias along with the Candy
Shop and Chameleon calibrachoas
have set the bar for plant novelty;
no other breeder has brought to
market a wider palette of colors
and selections of flower patterns
than Westhoff.
But the question is always: When
a breeder is on the cutting edge
of variety selection, what comes
next? What drives the next wave of
innovation? While there are some
commonalities with all plant genera
that breeders will look for when
selecting new varieties, there are
also some characteristics - specific
to petunia and calibrachoa - that
are worth mentioning. And then as
a breeding company that focuses
on these two genera, we also
have a distinct vision for what we
hope to bring to growers and the
gardening public.
almost all breeding because it is a
very general term that encapsulates
many factors that are challenging to
test individually, and one factor may
not be relevant without other factors.
For instance, it is not important if
the selection is mildew resistant if
the flowers do not hold up in a rainy
environment since these two factors
usually occur together, i.e., rainy
conditions can lead to higher rates
of mildew. Good garden performance
captures both factors without
having to select for only one. Other
characteristics that would fall into a
garden performance selection that
are gaining in importance would be
enhanced drought tolerance, lower
nutrient use/requirements, and
self-cleaning.
Focusing more specifically on the
breeding priorities for petunias and
calibrachoa, our breeders are always
on the lookout for novel flower
colors and patterns - but since
we have several well-established
series that focus on this, we are
moving to the next phase where
we are looking for improvements. A
tighter habit, flowering under shorter
daylengths and heavier branching
are all plant selection criteria we
are using, but we are also able to
improve on the flowers by selecting
higher contrasting bicolors, more
intense or saturated colors - and by
focusing on selecting colors that are
becoming trendy, while not selecting
22 APRIL 2020 GPNMAG.COM
http://www.GPNMAG.COM
April 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of April 2020
