G2 provides contract breeding services to the horticultural industries. What does this mean? One aspect of this service is that we conduct full-blown de novo product development for some of our clients. You bring an idea to us. G2 develops the product, from germplasm acquisition to ready-for-release final breeding and selection.
For example, you may want to develop a vegetatively-propagated series of varieties in a crop which traditionally has been seed-propagated. Consider the recent developments in Echinacea. A decade ago, coneflowers were virtually all seed-produced. Then Jim Ault at the Chicago Botanic Gardens, and Richard Saul at ItSaul Nurseries in Atlanta, GA, made interspecific hybrids between E. purpurea, E. paradoxa, and E. angustifolia. These extended the color range of coneflowers to include reds and oranges, and generated a huge number of tissue-cultured and vegetatively-propagated varieties. Seed into vegetative. G2 has the experience and capabilities to enable you to do these kinds of long-term development projects, whether we complete the breeding, or whether we pass it back to your breeders in a rough state so that you can do the finish breeding under your conditions and control.
Similarly, G2 can help you take a vegetatively-propagated crop, and determine whether it can be converted into a seed-propagated crop. For example, consider the exceptional work which Dr. Ellen Leue at PanAmerican Seeds (a Ball Horticultural company) did with Angelonia. Before PanAm's Serena series, angelonia was only a cutting-propagated crop. Now, as a seed crop, angelonia can be produced from plugs and cuttings. The grower has more options. The market for this genus is more open in ways which benefit the grower and the consumer. G2 has the experience and capabilities to enable you to expand the market for a vegetatively-propagated crop by expanding it into a seed-propagated one.
Or, you may see an opportunity to improve the producibility of a crop, and thus give the grower an advantage. Think about crops in which few of the existing varieties are well-matched. Calibrachoa, for example. Wouldn't your sales team be able to capture a larger share of the total calibrachoa market if your series was so well-matched that a grower could bench-run the entire crop. All colors matched in height and PGR requirements (if any). All colors matched in nutrient efficiency and environmental response. All colors coming into bloom within a 3 day window under normal seasonal cycles. All colors responding to a standard potting mix in the same way, allowing you to fertilize and irrigate the entire crop the same way.
What about regal geraniums, Pelagonium xdomesticum? What if you could produce a crop of regals to a schedule, with all colors blooming together. With a rooting efficiency of >95%. Needing no additional lighting or cooling treatments to induce flowering? Which could be grown alongside your zonal crop, running at the same temperatures, in the same media, to the same schedule?
These are the kinds of CR projects which get us excited at G2. We can help you to develop these kinds of projects. With our good clients, we appreciate the opportunity to brainstorm and vision with you so that we can better help you develop better plant products.
