Cultivation and Breeding of Ornamental Plants

Dear Colleagues,

The breeding of ornamental plants has a specific and focused aim since it involves a numerous and heterogeneous group of genera, species and cultivars. In fact, flowers are not cultivated to meet nutritional or industrial needs; their role is to satisfy aesthetic needs and the desire for beauty and novelty. The interest of the market in the continuous search for flowers with a variety of shapes and colors, with high productivity, has had effects on the breeding techniques applied to ornamental species. At present, the varieties of the main cultivated flowering species are derived from crossings between disparate species, even from different continents. As a result of this activity of inter- and intraspecific crossings, carried out randomly and for several centuries, modern varieties have a very complex genome, with a strong genetic impact and with different level of polyploidy, as well as with a high level of heterozygosity. Breeding programs for ornamental species are often complicated since it is even difficult to cross varieties of the same species, in particular due to different chromosomal sets of parentals that often cause problems of chromosomal pairing during meiosis phases.

In the frame of current challenges, such as climate change and energy savings, it is strongly recommended that the breeding of ornamental species be focused on strategies aimed at selecting varieties that require low productive inputs and are better adapted to high temperatures, while maintaining the standards of beauty required by the most demanding consumers.

This Special Issue welcomes studies on the breeding of ornamental species, via traditional breeding and technological approaches (NBT), aimed at the selection of new genetic materials with good aesthetic characteristics, but resistant to stress linked to climate change, for use in low-input production systems.

Dr. Beatrice Nesi
Dr. Marco Savona
Guest Editors

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• new varieties
• crossing
• incompatibility barriers