Articles
ACTIVITIES IN FLORICULTURE PLANT BREEDING AND GENETICS IN THE NETHERLANDS
The rapid growth of ornamental horticulture and the extreme centralisation of marketing have created specific problems.
Breeding objectives have changed drastically.
The creation of novelties is no longer the primary objective.
More important is the improvement of quantitative characters as uniformity, productivity, forcing ability, keeping quality, disease resistance, etc.
The high costs involved in this type of breeding work have proved to be beyond the capacities of all but the largest private breeding units.
Supporting research by State institutions is aimed at stimulating private breeding activities by (a) introducing efficient screening and preselection techniques, e.g. for productivity, forcing ability, disease resistance and vase life; (b) by providing a broader basis of genetic parent material, e.g. by introduction and screening of wild species and interspecific crosses; (c) by developing or adapting techniques and breeding systems specifically for ornamental crops, e.g. methods to overcome incompatibility, creation of polyploids to improve plant characters, use of polyploids to improve uniformity in seedling populations, mutation breeding, methods to improve quantitative characters and chromatographic analysis of colour components.
Examples are given of such projects in progress in cut-flower crops (rose, carnation, Gerbera, Freesia, Gloriosa), bulb crops (tulip, hyacinth, Dutch iris, Nerine), potplants (Hibiscus, Cyclamen) and woody ornamentals (Rhododendron).