Blue Breed: Rare Hibiscus Color Is Achieved

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100903112512.htm

ScienceDaily (Sep. 7, 2010) — Dr. Dariusz Malinowski is seeing blue, and he is very excited.

For four years, Malinowski, an AgriLife Research plant physiologist and forage agronomist in Vernon, has been working with collaborators Steve Brown of the Texas Foundation Seed and Dr. William Pinchak and Shane Martin with AgriLife Research on a winter-hardy hibiscus breeding project.

The project was first a private hobby of the inventors and became a part of the strategic plan of the Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Vernon in 2009. The flower commercialization is a part of the research on non-traditional or under-utilized crops that have value because of drought tolerance.

Malinowski's breeding goal has been to create a blue-flowering winter-hardy hibiscus.

"A blue pigment does not exist in this species, thus hybridizers have not been successful so far in creating a plant with blue flowers," he said. "There are a couple of recently introduced cultivars with plum and lavender flower color."

But now Malinowski has managed to breed a flower with the illusive color.

----- (skipping)

"It took four years of work and more than 1,000 crosses among three winter-hardy hibiscus species to achieve this goal of creating an almost-blue flowering hibiscus hybrid," he said. The new hybrid is not perfect yet, Malinowski said.

"The flowers get a fantastic blue hue in shade, but in full sunlight they are still plum-lavender-bluish," he said.

Brown said it is important to note that in the world of ornamentals, "blue" is interpreted to have a wide range of hues. Most ornamental blues have a more purple or lavender cast.

"There are very few true blue flowers in any ornamental cultivar," he said. "Although I would call this flower 'almost blue' as Dariusz has, there is no question that this development is unique in known hardy hibiscus color ranges.

"My expectation is that we will see more vibrant colors in next year's F1s (cultivars) using this line as a parent," Brown said.

Malinowski said he will use this plant as a parent in his breeding project this summer, with the goal to stabilize the blue color in full sunlight and increase flower size from the current 7 inches to the "magic" 12-inch diameter.

----- (skipping)

..