Follow the muse or the dollar signs?

As the sun begins to set on the 2024 growing season, plant breeders at Bailey Innovations take stock of this year’s projects and plan for the following year. By early September, we’ve made most of our selections from the seedlings germinated in the spring. The individuals that stand out are saved and eventually planted in a field for continued evaluation. The remaining seedlings that didn’t make the cut are ultimately composted to make way for next year’s crop. We also take this time to eliminate plants from our annual production trials. Anything that doesn’t perform well in a nursery setting is removed from trial to open valuable trial space for future evaluations.

By the end of October, we’ve finished potting up the clonal cuttings that will comprise next year’s production trials. Our winters are pretty mild in Georgia, but we still have to protect our young plants from the cold and most of our winterization prep is done by the end of November. Between November and December, we collect, clean, store and accession the seed created over the course of the year. The timing of when the seed becomes ripe largely depends on when the pollination took place; flowers pollinated in the spring become ripe earlier than the plants that flowered in the summer. As December begins, we consider our seed lots that will become next year’s evaluation populations and the data we’ve accumulated from various trials throughout the season. Rebloom and disease evaluations are two of the most important trials we run each year.

As we enter the late fall and early winter, we use the off-season to strategize and determine project priority for the next growing season. We have over 30 genera under development, and finding the right balance of “bread-and-butter” crops vs. innovative new projects can be challenging. We have to pay the bills with the mainstream standards that we know will sell, but we also have to innovate to stay relevant. I don’t need to tell you that there are A LOT of Hydrangea sp. and Lagerstroemia sp. out there. While we have some truly unique introductions coming, these genera can be a tough sell because of how crowded the market is. Finding a new plant group to work within can significantly impact commercial plant brands. Just look at Distylium and how impactful it’s been to Southeastern landscapes. First marketed by First Editions as “the best plant you’ve never heard of,” Distylium is now a staple throughout the South. As plant breeders, we’re ultimately on the lookout for new plant groups that can become the next industry standard.

During the late winter and early spring, breeders plan out the next season’s priorities and investigate new potential directions with the help of Bailey’s New Variety Committee. This group comprises individuals from various product development teams and assembles several times a year to evaluate priorities and progress. We pursue what inspires us, but we also have to do what we know sells; big blooms, lots of color, ease of growth, and rebloom are always popular targets. Sometimes, a project starts with a specific plant group, like Distylium. Sometimes, it’s a specific need or function, like early spring flowering and fragrant shrubs. The committee might recognize that we have a gap in our catalog that needs to be filled. Sometimes, the goal is to alter the environmental or cultural tolerances of an existing group. Improving cold hardiness and reducing water consumption are two very hot topics these days. The new variety committee utilizes what we call a breeding matrix to organize our current projects, allowing for high-level discussion regarding new projects and existing priorities. In essence, we perform an annual SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of our program to determine how to balance new and existing projects.

While Hydrangea macrophylla is undisputedly our number one crop, we work with many other genera considered southern staples, with Lagerstroemia being chief among them. We’re certainly not the only ones breeding crapemyrtles, but we have a diverse population of various species and hybrids that we hope will change how crapes are used in the landscape. Recently, we’ve begun working with plant groups that are considered drought-tolerant or water-wise to help cope with increasingly hot and dry weather. We experiment with new genera each year, and some perform better in our environment than others. If a new plant group excels in our seedling evaluations, it becomes a more regular fixture in our program. It could eventually be elevated to a higher priority level, as was the case with our Vitex breeding program.

You may have seen my previous article on Vitex and how much I love that genus. It is quickly rising in popularity thanks to its rugged toughness and ease of cultivation. Still, it had to first rise through the ranks of our breeding program before it attained its current status as a high-priority project. New varieties like Queen Bee offer improved production values, flower power, and environmental tolerances, surviving winters down to negative 20° F. Other varieties like Flip Side offer female sterility, providing an environmentally responsible choice for regions where vitex can be weedy. Unfortunately, I can’t share all the new projects we’re working on; it’s a very competitive market, and we’re all playing in the same sandbox. Just know that while we continue to breed and trial mainstream standards like Hydrangea and Lagerstroemia, we also look for exciting new species that will add some variety to the landscape.

At the heart of every plant breeder is a big plant nerd. We get excited about new introductions just like everyone else, but we have to keep our preferences and biases in check. We have to be able to distinguish unique characteristics that have mainstream appeal from those with slight variations that only hardcore aficionados would recognize. At the end of the day, we’re breeding plants for the masses, for people, and cultures around the world, and not everyone will appreciate the same things that we do. We have an obligation to provide unique additions to the ornamental market with cultivars that stand out in a crowded field, not just reiterations of the same old plants with minor differences. We want to inspire as many people as possible with exciting new introductions; that means understanding what our fellow plant nerds want while trying to anticipate what they’ll someday need.