Ornamental Plant Breeding

World’s ornamental plant market, including domestic market of several countries and its exports, is currently evaluated in 107 billion dollars yearly. Such estimate highlights the importance of the sector in the economy of the countries, as well as its important social role, as it represents one of the main activities, which contributes to income and employment. Therefore a well-structured plant breeding program, which is connected with consumers’ demands, is required in order to fulfill these market needs globally. Activities related to pre-breeding, conventional breeding, and breeding by biotechnological techniques constitute the basis for the successful development of new ornamental plant cultivars. Techniques that involve tissue culture, protoplast fusion and genetic engineering greatly aid conventional breeding (germplasm introduction, plant selection and hybridization), aiming the obtention of superior genotypes. Therefore it makes evident, in the literature, the successful employment of genetic breeding, since it aims to develop plants with commercial value that are also competitive with the ones available in the market.

Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of ornamental species: A review

Integration of desirable traits into commercial ornamentals using genetic engineering techniques is a powerful tool in contemporary biotechnology. However, these techniques have had a limited impact in the domain of ornamental horticulture, particularly floriculture. Modifications of the color, architecture or fragrance of the flowers as well as an improvement of the plant tolerance/resistance against abiotic and biotic stresses using plant transformation techniques, is still in its infancy. This review focuses on the application of Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, a major plant genetic engineering approach to ornamental plant breeding and the impact it has had to date.