EDITORS PREFACE

Gratitude is also extended to the commercial concerns listed below who generously supported the symposium with their educational donations Making it possible for the participant fee to be held to a minimum and for funds that were used for invited speakers, especially ones from foreign countries, to be on the program.

Symposium Patrons

W. Atlee Burpee Co.	Linda Vista Ltd.
Santa Paula, Calif.	Cartago, Costa Rica
Denholm Seed Co.	Mikkelsens Inc.
Lompoc, Calif.	Ashtabula, Ohio
Paul Ecke Poinsettias	Pan American Seed Co.
Encinitas, Calif.	Bradenton, Florida
Goldsmith Seeds, Inc.
Gilroy, Calif.
Harris Seed Co.
Rochester, N.Y
Jackson and Perkins Co.
Tustin, Calif.

K.C. Sink


INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

It is a great pleasure to welcome you to this, the first International Symposium on Floriculture Plant Breeding and Genetics. I believe floriculture geneticists and plant breeders have a right to be particularly proud of their accomplishments in providing mankind with a vast array of flowering and other ornamental plants. It is our hope that the exchange of information taking place during this Symposium will help to stimulate even greater contributions to this universal market. Perhaps you have wondered, "Why should we have a meeting like this?", "What do we have in common?", or "Am I going to profit from this experience?" My reply is that the essence of scientific endeavor, whether it is in the field of floriculture plant breeding or in any other scientific field, should be the meaningful communication of our results, observations, intuitions, and opinions to our colleagues. Also, we have the obligation as scientists to establish a body of literature which is accessible to students and other interested individuals. The latter is easily made possible by publishing the presentations of the Symposium in a volume of Acta Horticulturae. Since horticulture is principally an applied science, we need to include in the Symposium those individuals who represent the industry and who are interested in adopting new technologies. We have strived to include such individuals in this Symposium, and it is indeed gratifying to observe their response

G. Mendel must be considered the first scientist to conduct experiments in the field of plant breeding; his work on sweet peas was carried out in the 1860's. Thus, as a scientific field we are now just slightly over 100 years old. Perhaps it is appropriate on this occasion to reflect briefly on some of our accomplishments to date.

We now have a good understanding of the geographic origin of most of our greenhouse pot, cut, and bedding plant flower species. We have such information for the poinsettia, Euphorhia pulcherrima Klotzsch, which is from Mexico and upper Guatemala; for Petunia species from Brazil, Uraguay and Argentina; for the geranium, Pelargonium species, from South Africa; for the Easter lily, Lilium longiflorum Thunb; from the Ryukyus (Islands of Japan); and for the genus Impatiens from Java and New Guinea. The list is long and well-documented. In terms of seeking new flower species in foreign countries and in conducting breeding programs, I believe we are prone to forget where many of our cultivated types originated and what their native environment is like. The limits to which we can adapt our crops to greenhouse and bedding plant culture are often restricted by their indigenous temperature, water, light intensity and photoperiodic requirements.

The basic cytology, anatomy, morphology and taxonomy has been completed for most commercially important flower species. Often this type of information is available from studies conducted by researchers in the various botanical fields. The genetics of flower color inheritance, the chromatography of the pigments involved, and the breeding behavior of various pigmented lines were some of the first studies done on flower crops and are now fairly well-documented.

There are, however, a number of recently introduced species where this information is lacking. New colors that are being bred and selected for like the yellow petunia, and for foliage or green plants which have thus far received very little attention. Numerous genetic studies for simply inherited plant and flower characters have been done and reported for a wide range of floriculture species, but we do not have an extensive genetic map and linkage information available for any species that parallels the information available for the tomato or corn. Quantitative inheritance studies are uncommon in the literature, although this type of inheritance pattern is quite important in terms of flower yield in various cut flower crops, time to flower in some seed produced species, and plant stature.

Genetic studies on many floricultural species are in fact not always simple and straightforward due to polyploidy, complex ancestory involving one or more species, aneuploidy, and in the Composite and other families self - and cross - sterility barriers. With respect to breeding and the genetics of disease, insect, and air-pollution resistance, co-operating plant pathologists and entomologists have surveyed varieties. They have established response rankings from immunity to susceptibility for several flower species. Sometimes these initial evaluations are followed by the development of accurate, controlled screening procedures and genetic studies. In this area, the research is being aimed at elucidating what anatomical and/or biochemical mode of resistance is responsible for the observed differences. Researchers and commercial breeders alike appear to be highly concerned with elimination of pathogens, especially in asexually propagated crops, and with disease prevention measures. There appear to be vast opportunities to incorporate disease and insect screening in routine breeding programs during the evaluation of seedlings.

What does the future hold in terms of new technology, plant materials and research endeavors? In particular, will the subjects to be covered in this Symposium find their application niche? During the initial stages of planning the Symposium, Dr. Sparnaaij of the Netherlands suggested that we include a section of presentations on plant breeding activities, taking place in a few countries. Thus, we are pleased that four of our speakers will bring us up-to-date on who is doing what and where in Canada, the Netherlands, the United States, and France.

Some presentations of the Symposium will indicate that the area of plant tissue culture holds great potential as an adjunct technique to plant breeding. Haploid plants obtained by anther or pollen culture are invaluable in that they carry one half the normal chromosome complement; these plants can be utilized in cellular selection systems or doubled to produce first generation true-breeding individuals. The technology is now available to cold store for short periods of time and to rapidly propagate, asexually in vitro, specific plant genotypes that were otherwise dependent on maintainer type breeding schemes in order to be utilized. Thus, superior genotypes can now be reproduced in large numbers for conventional breeding as well as for seed production purposes.

The use of plant tissue culture to recover inter- and intra-specific hybrids of floriculture species and to make mutation breeding schemes possible will undoubtedly receive greater attention in the coming years as we seek greater diversity in our flower crops and more efficient manners of mutation breeding in asexually propagated ones. Overall efficiency in plant breeding programs on self-pollinated flower species may profit from use of the single seed desent (SSD) method which was first used on agronomic crops and is now being adapted for some vegetable crops. In this system, selection is delayed a couple generations beyond the F₂ generation and advance generations are obtained by single seed selection as the name implies. We will hear more on the theoretical aspects and breeding utilization of SSD.

In view of the fact that all countries represent a potential or real marketplace, variety protection, the legal means of securing ownership, and a just financial reward for the efforts expended in developing testing, patenting and releasing new varieties is now critically important. From a scientific point of view, we need to determine what constitutes a new variation in terms of phenotypic expression and to identify this variation at the molecular or biochemical level. As in many horticultural crops, flower crop breeding on some species has now evolved to a situation where the germplasm base is very narrow. This has led to the presumption that molecular markers such as amino acids, phenolics, terpenoids and isoenzymes could be used to describe new varieties as well as to differentiate between varieties with close phenotypic expressions. The limited research done in this area to date seems to indicate that in some, but not all, cases varieties of a given species can be identified by molecular entities but that environmental factors under which varieties are grown prior to biochemical analysis can also play a significant role in their expression.

Other reports at our Symposium will focus on cytological, genetic and various breeding studies. The breeding of flower crops for cool temperature and low light conditions is becoming more important in terms of conserving energy and lowering fuel costs. Improved technology and instrumentation has enabled us to better understand several phenomena, including flower pigmentation at the cellular level in vivo and the manner in which self-incompatibility systems operate and can be manipulated for practical purposes.

Two areas in which we will not hear any reports are plant exploration and germplasm storage. Yet both of these are of critical importance to our field. Plant explorations over the years have provided numerous floriculture species which have been finely honed and introduced to the commercial trade. A recent example is the Impatiens. In the United States we have an active plant exploration and plant introduction system within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Now, it is imperative that we collect and store as many of the desirable wild species as possible before they are lost forever to the increasing demands of housing, highways and agricultural land in developing countries.

Likewise, we should begin to routinely utilize germplasm storage facilities where they are available, and to encourage their establishment where needed. In the U.S. we have such a facility - The National Seed Storage Laboratory at Fort Collins, Colorado. As we collect wild species, develop genetic lines and release new varieties, they should be routinely submitted for safe-keeping to such governmental institutions.

In closing, the future of flower crop breeding and research can be viewed very optimistically. Our scientific skills and technology are becoming more refined, the people entering the field are bright and imaginative, and the demand by the consumer for flowers, green plants, bedding plants, and hanging baskets has never been better. Thus, in the friendly spirit of competition I urge everyone to have an open and successful Symposium.

K. Sink
Symposium Secretary