Bred in America, tested in Europe

摘要

Some of the growers visiting the BallColegrave pansy and viola trials early in March were able to meet two significant American specialists in these flowers. Scott Rusch is a PanAmerican Seeds manager who co-ordinates products from a team of breeders,one of them the recently introduced pansy series Matrix. His colleague Troy Thorup is carrying forward the development of Sorbet, claimed to be the world's best selling viola series. For both Matrix and Sorbet, the original processes of hybridisation and eventual selection of promising lines are undertaken in California, but trialing goes on worldwide to determine eventual choices for introduction to the market. Scott Rusch and Troy Thorup studied Matrix and Sorbet performance at the BallColegrave trials as part of a European tour that took them also to trials in Holland and Germany. There is another PanAmerican Seeds trials site in Australia, while in the USA one near Chicago is used to test promising material in climatic conditions very different from those of California.