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.

 ( enlarge photo )

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.

    Subscribe to our free RSS News feed to receive updates. 

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