Breeding of Ornamental Crops: Bulbous Flowers

Flowers and other ornamental plants are used for all social occasions. Consumers' preferences dictate the development of novel flower traits such as fragrance, flower color and shape, early flowering, less water consumption, and long shelf-life. The worldwide floricultural industry is worth over 50 billion Euros and can serve as a component of food security, influence socio-economic development, and generate employment. The ornamental industry is regarded as one of the fastest-growing farm industries. This industry is sustained through novelty, thus there is an increasing demand for plant breeders in both public and private sectors to fulfill consumers' needs. Biotechnological approaches such as genetic transformation, genomics, nanobiotechnology, and gene editing are well suited for designing custom-made novel traits of flowers benefiting both the ornamental and cosmetic industries. Moreover, micropropagation is well exploited commercially for large-scale plant production along with vertical and digital farming, and artificial intelligence, especially by the floriculture industry.

This book focuses on advances in breeding strategies of bulbous flower ornamental plants. Each chapter, contributed by eminent authors, is devoted to an individual ornamental genus or a group of related species. It provides an in-depth understanding of modern breeding strategies including traditional methods and biotechnological approaches. Topics covered in each chapter, in relation to the subject species, include current cultivation practices and challenges, germplasm biodiversity and conservation, traditional breeding, molecular breeding, tissue culture applications, genetic engineering and gene editing, mutation breeding, hybridization, and future research directions. Major concepts are illustrated with color photos.