Breeding of Ornamental Plants—Genetic Resources, New Challenges and Prospects: 2nd Edition

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: closed (31 July 2025) | Viewed by 646

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Section of Ornamental Plants, Institute of Horticultural Sciences, Warsaw University of Life Sciences (WULS), 159 Nowoursynowska Str., 02-776 Warsaw, Poland
Interests: anatomy; biodiversity; biostimulants; budding; cambium; climate change; frost resistance; genetic resources; historical roses; morphology; phenology; rhizogenesis; root cuttings; rootstock; roses; urban greening
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Following the success of the first edition of this Special Issue, “Breeding of Ornamental Plants—Genetic Resources, New Challenges and Prospects”, a second edition is being launched.

In recent years, our outlook on ornamental plants has undergone many changes, which has also inextricably affected our approach to their breeding.

The intensive breeding of numerous plant taxa and their hybrids lead to genetic erosion. Genetic erosion is a phenomenon that has been observed for a long time and is regarded as dangerous, primarily because it reduces the ability to adapt to unfavorable conditions of both the environment and cultivation. It is therefore necessary to preserve the existing gene pool and incorporate new gene sources into breeding work.

Breeding new cultivars should primarily respond to new challenges for horticulture and the environment, and these include climate change, extreme weather events, the possibility of ecological and organic cultivation, and the increasing demand for plants that tolerate urban conditions. The latter poses a particular challenge, as urban environments are highly stressful. A second aspect is the special needs of urban gardening, e.g., well-being, street foods, food use, biodiversity, and ecology services. Others include the ability of phytoremediation and utilization of pollutions, especially air dust, heavy metal utilization, and improvements in urban microclimates.

The proposed Special Issue aims to present advanced studies, methods, tools, and innovations in the field of breeding ornamentals and the conservation of gene resources in new, challenging environments. We hope to receive your contributions in order to share them with our community of researchers, students, and technicians. We hope that this invitation receives your favorable consideration, and we look forward to your future collaboration.

Dr. Marta Monder
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • applied genetics
  • conservation of gene resources
  • challenges of global climate change
  • challenges of ecology
  • new genetic resources
  • biodiversity
  • urbanized areas
  • sustainable production and cultivation
  • pests
  • fungal diseases
  • pathogens

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 1177 KiB  
Article
Genetic Differentiation of Ornamental and Fruit-Bearing Prunus laurocerasus Revealed by SSR and S-Locus Markers
by Attila Hegedűs, Péter Honfi, Sezai Ercisli, Gulce Ilhan, Endre György Tóth and Júlia Halász
Horticulturae 2025, 11(7), 854; https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae11070854 - 19 Jul 2025
Viewed by 433
Abstract
Cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) is an understudied, highly polyploid (22×) species that is widely used as an ornamental shrub and as a fruit-bearing plant in Türkiye. We analyzed 43 accessions—33 ornamental cultivars and 10 fruit-bearing selections—by examining size variations in 10 [...] Read more.
Cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) is an understudied, highly polyploid (22×) species that is widely used as an ornamental shrub and as a fruit-bearing plant in Türkiye. We analyzed 43 accessions—33 ornamental cultivars and 10 fruit-bearing selections—by examining size variations in 10 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers and the first intron region of the self-incompatibility ribonuclease (S-RNase) gene. A total of 498 alleles were detected across 11 loci, with the highest number of alleles observed at the S-locus. The SSR loci amplified between 4 (ASSR63) and 17 (BPPCT039) alleles per accession, with eight of the 11 primers generating more than 12 alleles per accession. Two markers, BPPCT040 and CPSCT021, uniquely distinguished all tested accessions. Of the alleles, only 178 (36%) were shared between the ornamental and fruit-bearing groups, reflecting significant genetic differentiation. A dendrogram and principal coordinate analysis revealed three distinct groups. Group 1 included most Hungarian and some European cultivars. Groups 2 (Western European cultivars) and 3 (Turkish selections) exhibited higher average allele numbers, suggesting greater genetic diversity in these groups. Our results indicate that cultivated cherry laurels originate from a broad genetic base and show clear genetic divergence between ornamental and fruit-bearing selections, likely due to differing long-term selection pressures. The observed genetic variability is consistent with the polyploid nature of the species and supports the presumed self-incompatible phenotype. This is the first study to report SSR fingerprints for ornamental cultivars and fruit-bearing selections, providing a potential tool for use in breeding programs. Full article
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