Ornamental plant breeding has long been focussed largely on visual traits or growth traits that impact the visual performance of the plant. This is gradually changing. The visual aspect remains important, but the list of selection criteria is getting longer. Meanwhile, technical plant quality is taking over the leading role from visual traits.
Many exhibitors present innovations specifically tailored to the needs of growers, buyers and consumers, including improved heat and drought tolerance, peat-free cultivability, lower disease susceptibility, better shelf life during the transport, shop and consumer stages, more efficient growing methods or entire plant series needing fewer or no growth regulators.
Still, visual appeal remains the most important selection criterion, reveals Ruud Brinkkemper, breeding director PanAmerican Seed. Particularly with crops that have not seen much breeding yet, visual characteristics weigh more heavily in the selection process. In these crops, the initial search still tends to focus on finding new colours and flower shapes. Once a full colour spectrum or multiple colours are available, crop characteristics start to play a bigger role.
