What Services Do Begonia Suppliers Provide?
Tuberous begonias are among the most stunning flowers you can grow in containers or beds. With shades ranging from pastels to ruby red, they make beautiful combinations in hanging baskets and raised planters.
Like most begonias, they require light and humidity to thrive, so a shady location is best for them. Watering needs to be consistent, ensuring the soil remains slightly moist but never soggy.
Cultivar Preservation
As begonia suppliers continue to grow in popularity, begonia suppliers offer a range of services that help ensure the long-term survival and growth of these beautiful blooms. This includes Cultivar Preservation, a program that collects and grows cultivars to share with the industry and the general public.
There are a number of begonia varieties that are considered to be endangered due to habitat loss or other factors. These include Asian begonias (genus Begonia) and a group of begonias known as dragon wing begonias, which are native to Peninsular Malaysia.
The majority of these begonias live in the wild in primary forest, often on rocks, where they are threatened by habitat loss and disturbance from eco-tourism activities. The cultivation and sale of these species is important in their conservation because the plants are a valuable source of new hybrid cultivars.
Most begonias are easy to grow, and they can be used as annuals or perennials. They thrive in partial shade and should be planted in well-drained, organic soil with excellent drainage. Water weekly during the growing season, and avoid sopping wet conditions that can cause root rot.
Many begonia varieties are also easy to propagate by rhizome division during repotting, or by cuttings with a rooting hormone. Leaf-tip cuttings of rex begonias, for instance, will typically sprout after just two to three weeks.
Whether you are a flower lover or a gardener, begonias are an essential plant to add color and texture to your garden, patio or floral designs. They are also incredibly versatile and make an excellent choice for indoors.
Aside from their colorful blooms, begonias are also popular for their foliage. Their striking leaves are dramatic in colors, shapes, and textures, and come in a wide variety of shades and patterns.
As begonias grow and become more popular in the floral industry, there are many new cultivars that have been introduced to the market. These new varieties, however, have a special growing process and you will want to know the details of this process in order to best care for your blooms.
If you are interested in learning more about this process and how to care for your begonias, we have provided a guide below that will give you all the information you need.
Identifying Cultivars
Cultivars are plants that have been selected and bred by human horticulturists to produce specific qualities. These may be ornamental, food or medicinal plant cultivars. The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) offers legal protection to cultivars that meet certain requirements, including “distinctiveness,” uniformity and stability.
The number of plant characteristics that need to be studied is extensive and, as a result, cultivar registration processes are often time-consuming and resource intensive. To achieve an efficient characterization, plant individuals must be collected repeatedly throughout their life cycle to record multiple phenological stages. This is especially true for the study of traits associated with edaphoclimatic variations, which can have a substantial impact on the validity of a cultivar identification.
One way to speed up the process of identifying a particular cultivar is by using an automated method that generates a list of cultivars that closely match a given description. This could be achieved by creating a computerized taxonomic key where descriptive codes representing the characteristics of a cultivar can be input into a search engine.
A variety of techniques have been used to identify cultivars, including DNA fingerprinting and morphological analysis. However, both these methods are cumbersome and difficult to use in practical applications. This paper presents a novel cultivar identification diagram (CID) strategy that uses random amplified polymorphic DNA markers to separate plant individuals in an efficient and referable manner.
STRUCTURE analyses were performed on a total of 21 culitvars, including a variety of breeding origins. The resulting dendrogram divided the cultivars into six major clades, and most clades showed good agreement with their breeding origins.
Begonias are a popular plant for home and garden, with hundreds of cultivars available from nurseries and garden centers around the world. They thrive in organic, well-draining soil, and are frost tender.
They’re also easy to grow in shade or sun, and require little water. Give them a diluted dose of soluble organic food every four to six weeks during the growing season, and they’ll reward you with beautiful, colorful blooms that will delight your friends and neighbors.
Identifying Cultivar Crosses
A cultivar is a plant which has been selected for a certain characteristic (flower color, foliage color, fruit color, shape, size, pest resistance, growth habit, disease resistance, longer bloom times or stronger stems) and is then propagated by a variety of methods. These include cloning (asexual reproduction, such as by plant cuttings), genetic manipulation at the cellular level in a laboratory, seed-growing, and hybridization.
Most cultivars are hybrids, which are the result of a genetic cross between two species. Some of these hybrids are created through asexual reproduction (such as by tissue culture), while others are created by crossing seed-grown varieties with other varieties in a breeding program.
Cultivars can be derived from both native and non-native plants, or even from plants growing naturally in natural areas. They can also be created by introducing genetic mutations into wild-derived germplasm through the introduction of invasive plant pathogens or radiation.
To create a new cultivar, plant breeders gather germplasm from a range of locations around the world to find promising traits. Some of these specimens may be found in natural areas that have been impacted by climate change or other factors.
The plants are then planted in a nursery to see if the desired characteristics are present. Then the specimens are evaluated for vigor, growth habits, maturity stage, resistance to diseases and pests, yield potential, and quality.
Once a cultivar has been developed, it can be marketed as an agri-product to farmers. It can also be protected under a legal system called the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants.
Some cultivars have a commercial value based on their ability to perform well in the field. They are often sold at a premium price or given away as samples or gifts.
Generally, the value of a cultivar depends on its specific qualities, as well as its potential to improve other crops or products. This is why many cultivars are bred to produce higher yields and better quality, or to increase pest resistance.
In addition to being able to produce more crops, cultivars can be adapted to a variety of different climate conditions, which can improve their ability to survive and thrive. They can be grown in regions with more moisture or colder temperatures, or in arid environments where they will require less water and fertilization. In some cases, cultivars can also help preserve and enhance the biodiversity of natural areas.
Identifying Cultivar Varieties
Cultivars are plants that have been propagated by artificial selection. They are typically bred for a specific characteristic or set of characteristics and are often chosen to perform a task more efficiently than their native species counterparts.
Cultivated varieties can be developed by a variety of breeding methods, including seed or vegetative propagation. They are often selected for their superior vigor or flowering time, and for other desirable characteristics.
Plant breeders are also able to develop hybrids by crossing or hybridizing two or more species. These hybrids can be referred to as ‘crosses’ or ‘hybrids’, and they are often designated with an “x” (for example, Ilex x attenuata ‘Savanna’ Holly).
Identifying the type of cultivar you are working with is critical to making informed plant choices. Most cultivars will grow true to type, which means they will retain their parent plant’s unique characteristics. This is especially important for gardeners who want to preserve a particular genus or cultivar in the nursery.
However, some cultigens, which are plants that have not been formally categorized and named as cultivars, can be more difficult to distinguish from their wild ancestors. These plants may have more specific morphological or other characteristics than the parent species, and these differences make them more difficult to identify.
For example, some varieties of trees, such as Magnolia grandiflora ‘Little Gem’ or ‘Southern Charm’, have shorter branches and bare rufous (rust-colored) hairs under their leaves. These are natural characteristics found in many wild populations, but they are not characteristic of the cultivated cultivars we know today.
Another example is Gleditsia triacanthos ‘Sunburst’, which has golden-yellow spring foliage and no thorns. This is a cultivar of a plant species called Gleditsia inermis, but it can be difficult to tell which plant is a cultivated cultivar and which is a wild ancestor.
Varieties are important to agriculture and need to be accurately identified for a number of reasons. For instance, they are essential for achieving genetic diversity in a crop and they are often required for obtaining statutory Plant Breeders Rights. Traditionally, variety identification has been based on morphological characters, but these are often compromised statistically by the effects of phenotypic plasticity. For this reason, it is critical to develop a rapid genotype assay that allows for the development of DNA profiles that can be used in conjunction with traditional morphological character testing.