Breeding of a New <i>Rosa hybrida</i> ‘Blondie’ with High Productivity and Fragrance, and Double Colored Petal for Cut Flower

Abstract

A new Rosa cultivar ‘Blondie’ was bred in Jeollabuk-do Agricultural Research and Extension Services to cope with changes in consumption trends and to reduce the burden of royalty expenditure. In 2013, between 'Regato' which had petal color of both red and orange as a mother plant and 'Cherry Brandy' which had petal color of both yellow and orange as a father plant were artificially crossed, and 74 seeds were obtained and then 53 seedling individuals were raised. The ‘R132093-45’ line, which had an uniform flowering, a fragrance, and excellent productivity, was selected through the characteristics evaluation of them during 2014-2015, and the ‘Blondie’ cultivar was developed through the characteristics trial, preference evaluation and productivity test during two years from 2016. The ‘Blondie’ cultivar was a standard type with the bicolor petal of orange (O24C) and peach (R36D) color and with a strong fragrance in flower, and deep anthocyanin pigments in the new shoots, medium elliptical leaf shape, deep green (N137A) of the leaf color, and strong gloss on the leaf surface. The flower shape was irregular circle and the upper and lower parts from the flower side had flat unique characteristics. The flower width of 'Blondie' was 9.4cm, smaller than the control variety ‘Hera’, and the number of its petals were 36.7. The degree of occurrence of thorns, cut flower length, and leaf growth were similar to the control variety. The vase life and consumer preference of cut flowers were better than those of the control variety, and the number of average annual cut flowers per m2 of ‘Blondie’ were 150.3, 18.4 stems more than the control variety. The ‘Blondie’ cultivar was registered on July 22, 2019, with the final right to protect the new cultivar (registration number: 7824).