I am but a young fellow, yet I have seen my share of changes. I have watched companies come and go, organizations peak and fail, and the image of gardening go from labor of love to decorating the deck. I have seen the corner garden center flourish only to face challenges from box stores, and box stores get so big as to direct the future of this industry. I have seen heavyweights of our industry retire and pass their torches to a younger set, with everyone collectively holding their breath to see if the younger set is up to the challenge.
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Yasuko Isobe, Suntory Flowers
“I feel the market will be needing ecology and environmentally friendly crops more than ever, considering more strict regulations obliged to landscapers, hotels, theme parks and public organizations that consume great amounts of plants. People are more conscious of living healthy, helping to make the environment better. With beauty and productivity, more clear added-value characteristics, such as drought-tolerance, less pesticides or chemicals, will be needed.” -
- Yasuko Isobe, Plant Breeder, Suntory Flowers
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Ockert Greyvenstein, Texas A&M University
“I feel that the major crops forming part of the annual bedding plants such as begonias, petunias, etc., will continue to be relevant. With the major focus of feeding the increasing global populations, we will see more edible landscapes. Hardy grasses will also become more relevant.
“The honeymoon period, where the introduction of a new shade of color or shape of an existing crop is sufficient for a new introduction, is over. We might see a consolidation in the variation available in specific crops and have the focus shift more toward disease and abiotic stress tolerance.”
Kelly Norris, Rainbow Iris Farm & Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden
“The kinds of crops we view as niche and specialty today will be relevant and important over the next 30 years. People who think we’ll just ride out the current condition of the marketplace are espousing fiction. Frankly, we struggle with a paradox — we are an industry of incredibly talented, inventive people, who, when put together, struggle with how to embrace innovation. How do we move forward and truly do innovative work? Innovation, by definition, assumes that there will always be a lack of it — it’s a circumstance of contrast. But how do we move the dial in favor of new varieties and new genera that not only offer creative landscaping solutions, but enhance biodiversity in our landscapes? How do we capitalize on the wow factor that we do such a great job of siphoning off by flooding the market with ‘me-too’ genetics after game-changing varieties have already changed the game?”
- Kelly Norris, Independent Plant Breeder/Author; Owner, Rainbow Iris Farm; Horticulture Manager, Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden
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Joseph Tychonievich, Arrowhead Alpines
“Focusing so much on traits that are useful for growers and retailers rather than breeding for gardeners is fundamentally short-sighted and will end up destroying this industry. If we don’t grow plants that gardeners love, it doesn’t matter a bit how easy they are to produce and ship. My prediction: Rock gardening is going to be the next big thing. Exotic trillium hybrids will be the must-have collector plant.”
- Joseph Tychonievich, Independent Plant Breeder/Author; Nursery Manager, Arrowhead Alpines
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Jian Ping Ren, PanAmerican Seed Co.
“There are so many new varieties each year. It can be confusing and sometimes difficult for growers and consumers to keep up. But we are all looking for ‘new’ things all the time. There has to be something ‘new’ each year. Of course, some new varieties are new for certain improved traits, which are necessary and can benefit breeding companies (high yield, reduced cost), growers (high germination, more uniformity) and consumers (better color and garden performance). The more exciting new for the industry is ‘true’ new and ‘wow’ new. New species, new types, new forms, new usage, and totally new colors (flower and foliage) will continue to excite the industry.”
- Ping Ren, Plant Breeder, PanAmerican Seed Co.
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Brent Horvath, Intrinsic Perennial Gardens
“I think the industry as a whole is too focused on the big box stores. We still need to breed plants that don’t fit that model, too. Ultimately, the more a plant gets bred, the harder it is to introduce as many unique traits.”
“I am looking forward to an increase in intergeneric hybrids. A recent example is the Digiplexis carried by Cultivaris (Thompson & Morgan genetics), a hybrid between a familiar foxglove and a relatively obscure shrub from the Canary Islands that rose to popularity very quickly. It’s an interesting example of the demand and curiosity of plant people for a synthetically produced, man-made hybrid.”
- Hans Hansen, Director of New Plant Development, Walters Gardens Inc.
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Amanda Hershberger, Syngenta
“Resistance breeding is vital to the success of many crops and reduces the need for chemical control, as well as reducing the pest’s development of resistance to a chemical control. My personal work experience involves resistance of vinca to Phytophthora. Breeding for pest and disease resistance in ornamental plants has primarily utilized traditional breeding methods. Resistance breeding has also included molecular methods for problems such as black spot in rose and Fusarium in carnation.
“Agronomic crops have really paved the way for resistance development using molecular markers. I foresee a greater use of molecular techniques to achieve resistance in ornamentals. So, how far away is this technology? It’s right on our doorstep. Every year this research is being done, the more affordable and accessible this technology is to other crops.”
- Amanda Hershberger, Plant Breeder, Syngenta
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Yasuko Isobe, Suntory Flowers
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Ockert Greyvenstein, Texas A&M University
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Kelly Norris, Rainbow Iris Farm & Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden
One of the future challenges, to be sure, is the continuing need for new and improved crops for the consumer. Make no mistake about it, regardless of whether or not one snickers at the introduction of one more red geranium, new crops — and new breeders — are the lifeblood of this industry.
So a valid question arises: Who is this next generation of breeders today and are they up to the challenge? Laura Drotleff, the editor of this exceptional magazine, looked for young breeders in this country and asked their thoughts about the present and future of their chosen careers. She shared them with me and now I do the same with you. The questions were far-ranging and the responses varied, but I was impressed with many of the comments.
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The Future Of Breeding
Joseph Tychonievich of Arrowhead Alpines in Michigan has seen some innovative breeding and is hopeful — but also sees “a lot of very dull, copy-cat breeding that makes me less hopeful. I think we’ll see more of both in the future — truly creative breeders pushing breakthroughs while other companies work to rapidly copy the successful introductions of their competitors.”
Why This Hydrangea From Green Fuse Botanicals Is a Gamechanger (Video)
Ockert Greyvenstein, a Ph.D. candidate in plant breeding at Texas A&M University, says he thinks breeding for abiotic and biotic factors must be addressed. “The green industry is going to have to keep supplying ‘green’ products, requiring minimal input with acceptable appearances,” he says. “Technology developed and implemented by the major food crops is likely to be implemented in floriculture crops to help with breeding progress.”
Jason Jandrew of Ball FloraPlant says he believes that “over the next 30 years, people will continue to have less and less outdoor space and free time for gardening. Pot crops and cut flowers will become even more interesting as people try to remain connected to disappearing green space outside their homes by bringing more of nature inside, especially in many developing nations with high population densities.”
Kelly Norris of the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden has a few sharp words about today’s breeders: “There are those coming of out graduate school who end up toiling away with petunias and commodity crops. I feel for them,” he says. “Then there are those of us in ‘private practice’ (a.k.a. unpaid hobby breeding) or working for public institutions that don’t have to live by the rules. We take risks, run into road blocks (like lack of funding or time) and fail more than we succeed. But we are passionate and believe in what we encounter in the public — an earnest desire to be fascinated by plants and to want something different than what they so often encounter. It’s this class of breeders that stand the chance of advancing the cause of plant breeding because they are champions of new genera.”
Breeding Predictions And Priorities
There were a number of questions posed to the breeders (the complete transcripts can be viewed online at GreenhouseGrower.com/tag/dec2013), but I will share just one more — a kind of “War of the Worlds” look at the future.
In a prediction for the future of floriculture in the next 30 years, Grevenstein says he would not be surprised “if GMO (genetically modified organism) technology is accepted and implemented in floriculture crops in the next 30 years.
Ping Ren of PanAmerican Seed has many opinions, one of which is that “houseplants that have been identified and proved to be truly good for human health or even illness treatment” may be a breeding priority.
Brent Horvath of Intrinsic Perennials is a little skeptical of the future because he sees “a lot fewer companies (staying in business) because they can’t make a profit due to high costs, especially taxes.” He also sees “less demand for the wide variety that has been offered in the past.”
And again from Norris, the most optimistic of the group: “Gardening will be something a majority of the population does, because it’s such a relevant part of cultural existence.”
Many other excellent comments were stated, some based on hope and desire (the truly younger breeders) others on experience (established breeders). It is particularly interesting to see what crops they believe to be relevant in the future and the directions they see their careers evolving.
We Need “New Blood” In Breeding
I hate to finish on a troubling note, but when Laura approached me about this article, she asked me to suggest some names of young breeders. I ran out of names after a minute and a half. Ultimately, we received responses from both academia and the industry, but only two or three could be considered truly new breeders, with less than five years of experience.
Are there more young breeders out there who we may have missed? If so, let us know — we want to hear from you. If not, we are in big trouble. Because if one thing is certain, the industry will not look like this 30 years down the road.