Development and evaluation of Gerbera hybrids

The urgent need of floriculture industry especially in gerbera is the breeding of the local quality flower with biotic and abiotic resistance. The present varieties available in India are all imported by paying huge royalties, more over they are highly sensitive to biotic and abiotic stress. Even though gerbera occupied a great place in Indian floriculture, no variety is available because of its initial multiplication ratio whatever variety is bred. Elite varieties produced by different institutions have not reached to the growers because of lack of sufficient good quality planting material there is a need to develop technology for rapid multiplication which could be accomplished through micropropagation techniques. There is an urgent need to standardize the protocol for large scale multiplication of elite planting material. Hence, the current work focuses on breeding of gerbera through half sib mating and further micropropagation for development of novel characters like flower color, flower form and vase life.