Conserving Water And Shelf Life

Petunias and impatiens aren’t your standard petunias and impatiens these days. They are bred for outstanding performance as well as vivid, unique colors and patterns, and will only get better. We currently see a trend towards plants that require little or no maintenance and conserve water. Demand for these products will no doubt increase across most horticultural product lines.

Breeders have also started to develop genetics specifically created to have outstanding holdability at retail, reducing shrink and increasing profitability in an increasingly competitive environment. Breeders like PanAmerican Seed will continue to launch XP (eXtreme Precision, eXtra Performance) series within their genetic lines, focusing efforts on enhanced uniformity leading to production efficiency and greatly improving retail appearance. XP products will continue to offer strong garden performance to meet and exceed consumer expectations.

On the technological front, I believe that in 25 years we will see on-line ordering systems such as Ball’s FastTrack become the standard for doing business and planning production. Since 1905, Ball Horticultural’s global family of breeders, seed and vegetative producers, distribution companies and research and development teams have been coloring the world with outstanding genetics. Plant breeding has evolved tremendously during our generation and I can’t wait to see what is down the road in the future!