Echinacea hybrida Guava Ice Freely Branching Flowering
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing Echinacea cultivars lack freely branching and freely flowering characteristics with attractive ray and disc floret coloration, and there is a need for new cultivars with improved garden performance and adaptability to varying environmental conditions.
Innovation Solution
The development of Echinacea hybrida 'Guava Ice' through planned breeding, which exhibits an upright habit, vigorous growth, strong flowering stems, early and continuous flowering, and unique greyed red to red-colored ray and orange-red disc florets, achieved through micropropagation and selection from a proprietary Echinacea hybrida selection as the female parent and an unknown Echinacea hybrida as the male parent.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If existing Echinacea cultivars are used, then the plant structure is simple and easy to maintain, but the plant lacks freely branching and freely flowering characteristics with attractive ray and disc floret coloration
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies parameter changes by selecting and breeding Echinacea plants with specific phenotypic parameters including upright habit, vigorous growth, early flowering, and distinctive coloration (greyed red to red ray florets and orange red disc florets). Through controlled breeding programs, these parameter changes were fixed in the genotype to achieve the desired freely branching and freely flowering characteristics while maintaining manageable plant structure.
2Reliability
If new Echinacea cultivars with improved flowering habits and coloration are developed, then garden performance is enhanced, but the breeding process requires controlled environments and multiple generations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by conducting breeding programs in controlled environments before field testing. The controlled environment allows for precise control of pollination, selection of parent plants, and initial generation growth, ensuring that the desired traits (upright habit, vigorous growth, early flowering) are established before the plants are introduced to garden conditions for final performance evaluation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses micropropagation techniques to create copies of the selected Echinacea plants. This allows for rapid multiplication of plants that have demonstrated the desired traits in controlled environments, enabling large-scale production while maintaining genetic consistency and stability of the improved characteristics.
3Productivity
If Echinacea plants are bred for early and continuous flowering, then productivity is improved, but the plant requires specific environmental conditions to maintain stability
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies parameter changes by selecting parent plants with specific genetic parameters that confer early and continuous flowering. Through controlled breeding, these parameters were fixed in the offspring, resulting in plants that maintain high productivity across multiple generations while demonstrating tolerance to varying environmental conditions including temperature and light intensity variations.
Data Source
AI summary
A new and distinct cultivar of Echinacea plant named ‘Guava Ice’, characterized by its upright plant habit; moderately vigorous growth habit; freely basal branching habit; strong flowering stems; early and freely flowering habit; large anemone-type inflorescences with greyed red to red-colored ray and orange red-colored disc florets; and good garden performance.