Cultivating Business Opportunities— Flower Breeders in Taiwan(b)|拈花惹草创商机──育种

The breeding of flowers includes creating new varieties and cultivars through hybridization or mutation as well as planting, artificially selecting, and cultivating pre-existing varieties. Early on, most breeders were simply selecting desirable qualities. Selective breeding of fruits and vegetables aims for disease resistance, increase in sweetness level, desirable harvest periods, and so forth. On the other hand, apart from selecting for ease of cultivation and disease resistance, the main goal of breeding flowers is to find something new and different to pique the interest of consumers and spark a buying frenzy.

Take moth orchids for example. Chen points out that the moth orchid that wins at an orchid exhibition isn't necessarily the prettiest flower, but rather the one that shows the greatest uniqueness. "Whether you're talking about the flower's color or shape, the greater the differences in the 'character' of the new variety, the more likely it will win awards."

In recent years, no new variety of flower has caused as much of a sensation as the Suntory blue rose Applause from Japan. Whiskey maker Suntory hired more than 100 PhD-level researchers and spent 14 years and NT$1.06 billion to extract the genes for blue coloration from pansies. It implanted those extracted genes into a rose and thus, attained the flower breeder's Holy Grail—a blue rose.

At NT$1,000 per stem, this genetically engineered flower hit the market in 2007. As the first blue bloom among the 2,500 varieties of roses, it has made people recognize the enormous amount of work that goes into flower breeding. In their quest for perfection, breeders find no greater motivation than the public's gasps of appreciation.

　　所谓育种，包括以杂交或诱变方式孕育新品种，以及种植、筛选、栽培先前已存在的品种，再进一步发展出新品种。早期的育种，其实多只是『选种』。蔬果育种的目的在抗病、增加糖度、调节产期等，而花卉育种除了易栽培、抗病等条件外，最大的目的则在『求新求变』，以求『色』诱消费者，刺激新买气。

　　以蝴蝶兰为例，陈文辉指出，兰展得奖的兰花不一定是全场最美的，却往往是最具独特性的。『无论是花色、花型，育出的新品种『性状』变异度越大，就越容易获奖。』

　　近年轰动全球花卉界的新品种，非日本山多利企业推出的『蓝玫瑰』莫属。生产威士忌的山多利企业，聘用了上百位博士、历时 14 年、耗资新台币 10.6 亿元，采集三色堇中的蓝色汁液，再将其基因分离出来植入玫瑰里，才成功培育出梦想中真正的蓝玫瑰花。

　　这朵基因工程下的产物在 2007 年问世时，一朵要价 一千台币。在全球 2,500 多个玫瑰品种里，这第一朵蓝玫瑰让世人见识到花卉育种的旷日废时。育种家要使之更臻完美，而众人赞叹的眼光，就是最好的动力。