In these lively and provocative essays, Jerome Malitz explores how ornamental plants could be improved through hybridization and genetic engineering. With the golden age of plant discovery now mainly a thing of the past, the quest for new varieties leads to the laboratory or to chance mutations in the garden. Biotechnological innovations such as protoplast fusion, gene transfer, and in vitro fertilization are already being applied to create new and improved plants. Such scientific methods will no doubt play an ever-increasing role in the development of new garden plants.
In easy to understand language, the first part of the book offers an introduction to the basics of taxonomy, heredity, genetic engineering, and biotechnology as they relate to the possibilities for creating new plants for a variety of environments. In addition, Malitz discusses a variety of plant characteristics most pleasing and useful to gardeners, such as vigor; cold, heat, and salt tolerance; disease and insect resistance; and duration of bloom period.
The second part of Plants for the Future is an extensive wishlist of detailed breeding goals for specific plants. Forty-five plant families are discussed, presenting their merits and shortcomings - and the characteristics that gardeners admire in them. The author suggests possible hybrids that may bring out the very best traits to enhance the gardens of the future.