Houston Chronicle by Molly Glentzer April 11, 2019
Spring has finally burst into glorious color across the display gardens of the Antique Rose Emporium, a bit delayed by a late freeze, prolonged gray days and a mini-drought before recent rains and warmer temperatures.
The most promising flowers, however, grow in the more utilitarian, humid space of the company’s greenhouse, poking up from white plastic bins on plants less than a foot tall. Dozens are showing their first stuff in an intense, survival-of-the-fittest contest that’s the plant equivalent of an extreme reality show. The newly bred roses will have to pass a number of endurance hurdles to stay in the game.
Their creator, 31-year-old Andrew Barocco, may himself be the most exciting entry into the rose business in decades. Although he’s still making his way through graduate school at Texas A&M University, the emporium’s full-time production manager and director of breeding feels like he has no time to waste.
Developing and introducing a new rose to the public takes patience. New crosses must grow a few seasons before they are officially tested for another five years across different U.S. environments. And time is of the essence, as the industry fights the spread of rose rosette, a still-uncurable viral disease causing malformed leaves and flowers that threatens to wipe out many of the roses home gardeners enjoy today.
Barocco is using genetics to create plants that are truly bulletproof — ultra-disease-resistant, super-fragrant and decadent-looking. The holy grail, a magnificent rose with all those qualities, could potentially punch the ubiquitous ‘Knockout’ to the back of the ring.
Nurseries already sell excellent new shrub roses by major growers such as Kordes, Weeks and Star that are hardy, brightly colored and more carefree than some of the historic antiques that inspired them. But susceptibility to rose rosette is the norm, Barocco said. “More than 90 percent of roses that are trialed will come down with it,†he said. “It’s a really hard virus to find resistance to.â€
Last Monday, he was thrilled to see flowers opening on a tray of candidates he’d bred by crossing the Emporium’s own blousy pink, free-blooming ‘Doreen’s Centennial’ and the golden-peach Griffith Buck heirloom ‘Winter Sunset.’ Seedlings that offer a “maiden bloom†that quickly will be repeat bloomers, Barocco said. Repeat bloom is another asset he needs.
The flowers were amazingly different in color and form, each taking slightly different traits from the parents. Plants are sexier than people, genetically speaking, sprung from a more diverse genetic pool. While humans have two sets of chromosomes, the plants Barocco works with can have two, three or even six sets — called diploids, triploids and hexaploids.
Seeing what comes up is part of the fun. But coming up with good roses is as much art as science, Barocco said. “Genetics and molecular markers are very important and needed, but no amount of schooling can teach you which two parents to pick in an artistic sense.â€
Barocco is hell-bent on finding the best; so obsessed that he has collected what may be the biggest bank of genetic rose material in the U.S. The freezer in the Emporium’s office contains baggies full of vials of saved pollen from hundreds of varieties that no one else is using. He applies them to rose female parts with a small paintbrush that he dips after each use in alcohol to protect the integrity of his crosses.
More:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/life/gardening/article/Aggie-at-Texas-Antique-Rose-Emporium-develops-13760967.php
