Saturday, November 27, 2010
First all-black petunia - Black Velvet set world record
LONDON, UK--Scientists from flower breeding company Ball Colegrave have created the world's first all-black petunia plant, called Black Velvet; the new flowers were developed using natural breeding techniques to turn them a dark black colour and will be on sale at a premium price of 2-3 pounds per plant.
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Flower breeder Jianping Ren developed the new plants at Ball Colegrave. She said: 'The black colour did not exist in petunias before, so it has to come from the right recombination of a novel colour mutant and multiple regular colour genetic backgrounds.
The flower took plant breeders in the US four years to create. Now, after a year of field trials in the UK to ensure it can tolerate our climate, its creators are launching it.
In nature, flowers come in pretty much any colour you like – as long as it's not black. The pigments that flowers employ to colour their petals don't produce black.
The creators of the new petunia - dubbed "Black Velvet" - claim theirs is the blackest bloom yet produced.
Anthocyanins can produce red and blue. By selecting flowers with the highest levels of these pigments and breeding them together, it's possible to create very dark purple petals and leaves.
The new petunia is in fact, like all "black" flowers, a very dark purple.
Stuart Lowen, marketing manager with the Banbury horticulture firm which developed the flower, Ball Colegrave, said: "It's completely unique. It's the first black petunia anywhere in the world. It was created by experimenting with existing colours already on the market and breeding them using traditional methods...
"They say black goes with anything, and it really looks exceptionally striking in the garden - it goes very well with whites, yellows and pinks. It's rare to get a flower as black as this - very seldom do you get anything this dark.
The Guinness World record for the tallest rose bush is 5.66 m (18 ft 7 in), grown by Robert Bendel (USA) at his home in Morristown, New Jersey, USA.
Guinness World Records also recognized the tallest zinnias which have been grown by Everett Wallace Jr. and Melody Wagner. These measured 8 ft 8 in, 9 ft 8 in, 12 ft 6 in, and 12 ft 8.
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Related world records:
Largest maple leaf - Eve Steel
Largest puffball - Finley O'Neill
Largest Pumpkin - Chris Stevens
Longest cucumber -Clare Pearce
Smallest
Waterlily - Nymphaea thermarum
Most
diverse repository of crop seeds - Svalbard Global Seed Vault
Biggest
Mango - Sergio and Maria Socorro Bodiongan
Oldest
Living Palmer's Oak- Jurupa Oak
Tallest
Zinnia - Everett Wallace Jr. and
Melody Wagner
Tallest
living Christmas tree - Coeur d'Alene
Smallest
orchid - Lou Jost
Largest
maple leaf - Hailey Nickolson
Most
tomatoes grown on a single truss - Graham Tranter
Tallest
rose bush - Robert Bendel
Largest
pumpkin - Christy Harp
Heaviest
gooseberry-world record set by Bryan Nellist
Tallest
Cactus - SDM College of Dental Sciences
Largest
rutabaga - Scott Robb
Largest
cabbage - Steve Hubacek
Longest
Cucumber - Yitzhak Yazdanpana
Largest
organic cucumber - Segee family
Largest
potato - Khalil Semhat
Largest
rutabaga-world record set by Norm Craven
Most
cobs on a maize plant - Mark Wozencroft
Largest
marrow - Ken Dade
Longest
Spaghetti Bean - Toni Velardo
Longest
water spinach -Li Hui
Largest
horizontal wall of flowers - Thompson and Morgan
Saturday, November 27, 2010
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