Compact Buddleia Breeding for Deer Resistance and Flowering
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current butterfly bush cultivars lack a compact, winter-hardy variety with vibrant cerise-pink to raspberry-pink flowers and robust disease resistance, particularly in terms of deer browsing, while maintaining a compact growth habit and prolonged flowering season.
Innovation Solution
Buddleia 'Prince Charming' is a hybrid butterfly bush with a compact, rounded-mounded habit, featuring bright cerise-pink to raspberry-pink flowers, dark green lanceolate foliage, and resistance to deer browsing, bred through a proprietary hybridization program, exhibiting stability across generations and varying environmental conditions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If butterfly bush cultivars are bred for taller and wider growth habit, then more flowers can be produced, but the plant becomes less compact and harder to maintain in small gardens
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies parameter changes by selecting and breeding for specific genetic traits that control plant architecture. The cultivar 'Prince Charming' exhibits a compact growth habit parameter while maintaining high flower production, achieved through controlled hybridization and selection of parental lines with desirable compactness genes that do not compromise flowering capacity.
2Ease of manufacture
If butterfly bush cultivars are bred for vibrant flower color, then aesthetic appeal is improved, but the plant may become less hardy or more susceptible to disease
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies composite materials principle by creating a composite genotype through hybridization of multiple parental lines. The cultivar 'Prince Charming' combines genetic material from parents with different desirable traits: one parent contributing vibrant cerise-pink flower coloration and another parent contributing winter hardiness and deer resistance, resulting in a composite plant that exhibits all desired characteristics simultaneously.
3Duration of action of moving object
If butterfly bush cultivars are bred for prolonged flowering season, then ornamental value is enhanced, but the plant may require more energy and resources
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies continuity of useful action by breeding a cultivar with staggered flowering patterns. The thyrse inflorescences of 'Prince Charming' produce flowers continuously over an extended period from mid-summer through fall, with successive batches of blooms appearing along the flowering stem, ensuring continuous ornamental display without requiring excessive energy input at any single time point.
Data Source
AI summary
Buddleia ‘Prince Charming’ is a short, compact, mounded, multi-stemmed, winter-hardy butterfly bush with long, compact, flowering, thyrse over a long season beginning mid-summer with sweetly-fragrant flowers of bright cerise-pink to raspberry-pink petals that are attractively offset by dark green foliage with silvery undersides. The new plant is valuable for landscaping en masse, as an accent or as a potted specimen.