Breeding of new ornamental varieties: Rose

Floriculture has become an important industry in many countries as a result of advanced scientific techniques and stable supply of improved varieties. Development of new varieties and their fast marketing are major challenges in floriculture trade. Rose is grown mainly for cut flowers for floriculture industry. All the present-day colourful varieties and their novelties are the result of extensive random hybridization, spontaneous and induced mutations and selections. Voluminous literature is now available on rose breeding using different technology. Here we highlight how present knowledge can be exploited to regulate various desirable characters of rose for selective hybridization, target-oriented induced mutation and in vitro mutagenesis. Molecular breeding offers new and exciting challenges for future improvement of rose.