Cultivation and Breeding of Ornamental Plants

A special issue of Horticulturae (ISSN 2311-7524). This special issue belongs to the section "Floriculture, Nursery and Landscape, and Turf".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 September 2024 | Viewed by 793

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
CREA Council for Agricultural Research and Economics- Research Centre for Vegetable and Ornamental Crops, Via dei Fiori 8, 51012 Pescia, Italy
Interests: breeding; ornamental plants; hydrangea

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
CREA Research Centre for Vegetable and Ornamental Crops, Corso degli Inglesi 508, 18038 Sanremo, Imperia, Italy
Interests: morphogenesis; differentiation; in vitro culture; breeding
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Special Issue Information

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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Keywords

  • new varieties
  • crossing
  • incompatibility barriers

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

11 pages, 3978 KiB  
Article
Transcriptome and Pigment Analyses Provide Insights into Carotenoids and Flavonoids Biosynthesis in Camellia nitidissima Stamens
by Yi Feng, Kunkun Zhao, Jiyuan Li, Minyan Wang, Hengfu Yin, Zhengqi Fan, Xinlei Li and Weixin Liu
Horticulturae 2024, 10(4), 420; https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae10040420 - 22 Apr 2024
Viewed by 357
Abstract
Camellia nitidissima is famous for its golden flowers. Its flowers are rich in secondary metabolites, and they have ornamental, medicinal, and edible value. Pigment composition and regulation has been studied in the golden petals, but there has been little research on pigment composition [...] Read more.
Camellia nitidissima is famous for its golden flowers. Its flowers are rich in secondary metabolites, and they have ornamental, medicinal, and edible value. Pigment composition and regulation has been studied in the golden petals, but there has been little research on pigment composition or the molecular mechanism underlying yellow stamens in C. nitidissima. To explore the molecular mechanism of yellow stamen formation, three developmental stages (S0, S1, and S2) were used for transcriptome and pigment analyses. Pigment analysis showed that the flavonoid content increased sharply from the S0 to S1 stage and decreased from the S1 to S2 stage, and the carotenoid content increased sharply during yellow stamen formation (from the S1 to S2 stage). RNA-seq analysis showed that a total of 20,483 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified. KEGG and heatmap analyses showed that flavonoid and carotenoid biosynthesis pathways were enriched, and we identified 14 structural genes involved in flavonoid biosynthesis and 13 genes involved in carotenoid biosynthesis and degradation. In addition, the expression of carotenoid- and flavonoid-related genes was consistent with carotenoid and flavonoid content. In addition, correlation network analysis indicated that the WARYK, MYB, bHLH, and AP2/ERF transcription factor families were screened for involvement in the biosynthesis of flavonoids and carotenoids. In this study, we describe the pathway associated with color formation in the stamens of C. nitidissima. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cultivation and Breeding of Ornamental Plants)
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