Research Review Research Journal of Agricultural Sciences 2010, 1(4): 306-314

Present Status and Scope of Floriculture Developed through Different

Biotechnological Tools
R S Sengar, Reshu Chaudhary and Sanjiv Kumar Tyagi*
Tissue Culture Lab, College of Biotechnology,
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patal University of Agriculture and Technology, Meerut-250 110, Uttar Pradesh, India
*Department of Botany, D.A.V. College, Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, India
e-mail: rs.svbpatu@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Last 35 years have seen a tremendous emphasis on their in vitro tissue culture and micropropagation,
while the latter 10-15 years has seen a surge in transformation experiments, all aimed at ameliorating
aesthetic and growth characteristics of the plants. Recent modern techniques of propagation have been
developed which could help growers to meet the demand of the horticultural industry in the next century.
An overview on the in vitro propagation via thin cell layer, meristem culture, regeneration via
organogenesis and somatic embryogenesis is presented. Available methods for the transfer of genes
could significantly simplify the breeding procedures and overcome some of the agronomic and
environmental problems, which otherwise would not be achievable through conventional propagation
methods. The international trade in floriculture is estimated to be worth about US $150 billion, with the
global demand for ornamentals steadily increasing. Consumer choice is influenced by factors such as plant
architecture and flower color. Conventional breeding has been responsible for the introduction of novel
traits into ornamental plants and has played an important role in the development of new cultivars.
However, a restricted gene pool and failure of distant crosses have led to the exploitation of somatic cell
techniques, particularly genetic transformation, to generate plants with desirable traits. Because
ornamentals are not used for human consumption, genetic manipulation approaches with these plants
may be more acceptable in the immediate future to the general public, in certain parts of the world, than
genetically manipulated food crops.

Key words: Floriculture, Biotechnological tools, In vitro micropropagation, Genetic transformation

Beauty, purity, love and passion are some of the
emotions symbolized by the flowers. The feelings of
love, affection and joy are conveyed effectively with
these non-speaking beauties of nature, for example a
lotus conveys purity, rose love, pansy thoughts and
narcissus egotism. Flowers have a definite role to play
at almost all occasions of human affairs like birth,
marriage, worship, adornments and death. Besides
flowers, other ornamental plants also play an important
role in environmental planning of urban and rural areas
and from wasteland development to overcoming
pollution. An important aspect of floriculture is that it is
a good avenue to generate gainful employment for
youth and women of sub-urban and rural areas.
The introduction of various in vitro techniques has
revolutionized the horticulture sector in India in recent
years. The greatest stimulus provided by the tissue
culture technology lies in increased speed of clonal
multiplication of shoot meristem culture of highly
desired strains of plant material besides freeing the
clonal material from pathogens. The three major areas
of bio-technology, which can help us in crop
improvement in general and floriculture in particular are
micro propagation systems, including tissue culture,
genetic engineering and new methods of in vitro
hybridization and recombinant DNA technique. The
micro propagation industry in India has made rapid
strides. From a mere 0.5 million plants in 1987, the
production of plants through micro-propagation has
gone upto 22.0 million in 1994. The foreign technology
in floriculture generally revolves around the green
house, where plants are grown under fully protected
conditions. This is required in view of the externally
cold climate in these regions. The conditions in green
house protect the flowers against precipitation, wind
and too much radiation, besides creating a micro-
climate around the flowers. The trends in floriculture
production, on global basis, have been enormously
dynamic during the past four decades. Netherlands
increased the area by 70% which West Germany
increased its consumption of floriculture products by
150%. Per capita consumption of floriculture products
was the highest in Switzerland, followed by Holland,
Germany, Belgium and Sweden. The demand for potted
plants by 2000 AD in Europe is expected to rise by
57%, while the demand for fresh cut flowers in Europe,
Japan and USA is expected to be about 38 billion US
dollars in 2000AD. India has got the major advantage of
producing a significant proportion of its floriculture
produce during winter, when the demand for such is

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 Sengar et al.
Fig 1 Tissue Culture inoculated plants in lab
very high in Western countries. With mild winters in
most parts of India, it is possible to produce them at a
comparatively lower cost. India has got a number of
other advantages like favorable climatic conditions,
varying agro-climatic zones, availability of cheap labor,
sound research infrastructure, advanced tissue culture
facilities, etc. Non-recombinant technology, which
includes both the conventional and biotechnology based
technologies, are comparatively well developed in
India, while the recombinant DNA technology is still
largely restricted to laboratory trails. After assessing the
various factors and the effect of the conventional, non-
conventional and recombinant technologies, it is found
that “Tissue-culture” is best suited for the development
of floriculture in a big way. Green house technology
could be used only in places of high altitude with frost
and very cold climate or in case of special varieties
commanding a good export market. Recombinant DNA
technology, which is still in a nascent stage, could be
adopted in the next decade. Data on various financial
parameters are available from two sources, viz Bio-tech
Consortium India Ltd. (BCIL) and National
Horticulture Board (NHB). The result of these two
studies indicate that the adoption of tissue culture
technology will be fully beneficial with BC ratio
varying from 1.36 to 1.75 in the case of BCIL and 1.21
to 1,49 in the case of NHB. Further the investment will
yield a return of 566% over 12 years. The basic aim of
adopting any new technology in any sector, not to talk
of floriculture alone, is to improve the quality, increase
the production and productivity, bring down the cost,
and increase the competitiveness of the product in the
market both within and outside the country.
As an economic preposition, the flower crops
provide higher income from comparatively smaller
areas than other crops. However, the advanced
floriculture technology is capital intensive i e it is hi-
tech and hi-cost technology. Green houses, equipment
machines, chemicals, cooling, storage, packaging and
other infrastructural facilities all involve the high cost
307
Fig 2 Hardening of tissue cultured plants
but the returns are equally lucrative, making it a
profitable agri-business.
Floriculture industry comprises of:
 Cut flowers trade of traditional and modern cut-
flowers and cut foliage, both fresh and dried used in
bouquets, garlands, venis, gajras, rangolis and floral
arrangements
 Nursery management and propagation business for
supply of plant material
 Flower and live plant rental services
 Landscape consultancy
 Floral perfume industry
Efforts are going on worldwide to boost floriculture
industry using biotechnology (Hutchinson et al. 1992)
and the attention is focused on development of new
flower color and novel plant morphology, as these are
the main features which determine consumer interest.
One of the major constraints of floriculture industry is
non-availability of constant supply of quality bloom in
all the regions of the country. All floricultural crops are
climate specific and flowers are transported from one
climatic zone to another for sale (Datta and Mitra
1999). Acclimatization of any crop from one climatic
zone to another is normally done through conventional
breeding.
Biotechnological development in floriculture
The Government of India recognized early on the
importance and potential of biotechnology when it set
up the National Biotechnology Board in 1982. This then
became a full-fledged department in 1986 (Sharma
2001). The department of Biotechnology supported the
establishment of seven centers for plant molecular
biology throughout the country. Today, there are about
50 public research units in India using tools of modern
biotechnology for agriculture especially techniques for
cell and tissue culture. The Indian government allocates
an estimated US $15 million annually on plant
biotechnology research while the private sector
contributes about US $10 million (Huang et al. 2002).
The Indian plant biotechnology research agenda is
 Present Status and Scope of Floriculture Developed
dominated by tissue culture and micropropagation
explotation of heterosis vigor, development of new
hybrids and planting material with desirable traits and
the genetic enhancement of important crops (Sharma
2001).
Tissue culture and micropropagation
Traditionally plants have been used by indigenous
people for herbal medicines. Flowering bulbs and other
fynbos species are prized in the cut-flower industry.
Rapid urbanization and overexploitation of wild species
by the horticultural trade and by traditional medical
practitioners has led to a decline in many species. In
vitro culture is one of the key tools of plant
biotechnology that exploits the totipotency nature of
plant cells, a concept proposed by Haberlandt (1902)
and unequivocally demonstrated, for the first time, by
Steward et al. (1958). Tissue culture is alternatively
called cell, tissue and organ culture through in vitro
condition (Debergh and Read 1991). It can be employed
for large-scale propagation of disease free clones and
gene pool conservation. Ornamental industry has
applied immensely in vitro propagation approach for
large-scale plant multiplication of elite superior
varieties. As a result, hundreds of plant tissue culture
laboratories have come up worldwide, especially in the
developing countries due to cheap labor costs.
However, micropropagation technology is more costly
than conventional propagation methods, and unit cost
per plant becomes unaffordable compelling to adopt
strategies to cut down the production cost for lowering
the cost per plant (IAEA-TECDOC 2004).
Tissue culture is a means of preserving species that
are rare and threatened and providing an alternative
source of plants for commercial, horticultural and
traditional medicinal trade. Tissue culture is the “aseptic
culture of plant protoplasts, cells, tissues or organs on a
culture medium which is as defined as possible; the
cultures are maintained under controlled environmental
condition”.
Tissue culture consists of growing plant cells as
relatively an organized masses of cells on an agar
medium (callus culture) or as a suspension of free cells
and small cell masses in a liquid medium (suspension
culture). Tissue culture is used for vegetative
multiplication of many species and in some cases for
recovery of virus-free plants. It has potential application
in production of somatic hybrids, organelle and
cytoplasm transfer, genetic transformation and
germplasm storage through freeze-preservation. The in
vitro culture of cells, tissues and organs of plants has a
great potential to generate improved crop plants and
ornamentals.
Tissue culture of ornamentals
The main difficulty in growing indigenous plants in
large quantities is to obtain sufficient plant material.
Seeds may germinate erratically and bulbs usually
308
propagate by offsets. This makes production too slow to
warrant their introduction as new commercial crops. In
vitro methods are used to speed up propagation. The
success of the system lies in the development of strict
protocols for each species. This involves improving
decontamination procedures and determining the
defects of various cultural factors on plant growth, both
in vitro and ex vitro to establish optimum growing
conditions. Many commercial ornamental plants are
being propagated by in vitro culture on the culture
medium containing auxins and cytokinins (Preil 2003,
Rout and Jain 2004). Several different explants have
been used for direct shoot formation. Mayer (1956)
succeeded first time regeneration of cyclamen shoots
from tuber segments on MS medium supplemented with
10.7 μM NAA.
Ornamental plants are produced mainly for their
aesthetic value, thus the propagation and improvement
of quality attributes such as leaf types, flower color,
longevity and form, plant shape and architecture, and
the creation of novel variation are important economic
goals for floriculturists. Successful in vitro propagation
of ornamental plants is now being used for
commercialization. Many commercial laboratories and
national institutes worldwide use in vitro culture system
for rapid plant multiplication, germplasm conservation,
elimination of pathogens, genetic manipulations, and
for secondary metabolite production (O'Riordain 1999).
Annually, millions of ornamental plants are routinely
produced in vitro. The great potential of
micropropagation for large-scale plant multiplication
can be tapped by cutting down the cost of production
per plant by applying low-cost tissue culture, which is
to adopt practices and proper use of equipment and
resources to reduce the unit cost of micropropagule and
plant production without compromising the quality.
Bioreactor technology may cut down the cost of plant
production provided proper precautions are taken to
prevent contamination. Somatic embryogenesis
facilitates cryopreservation, synseed development,
mutations, and genetic transformation. Plant
transformation methods and enhanced gene silencing
technology can effectively be used to evaluate and
authenticate newly discovered endogenous genes to
characterize their function in plants as well as to
genetically manipulate trait quality and productivity
(Dandekar 2003). Recent progress in genetic
manipulation of plant cells has opened new possibilities
for improvement of ornamental pot plants. In 2001, an
Australian company Florigene became the first
company in the world to sell genetically modified plants
by mail order to the general public for home garden use
(Lu et al. 2003). They are still selling transgenic
products of two carnation types in Australia, Japan and
USA.
Tissue culture of floriculture
 Sengar et al.
Fig 3 Hardening of tissue cultured plants in poly house
Micropropagation is undoubtedly the most familiar
application of plant biotechnology. The technique offers
not only means for mass propagation but also plays an
important role to conserve elite or rare plants that are
threatened with extinction. Orchids were, in fact, the
first plants to be propagated commercially utilizing in
vitro methods. Presently this technique is being
commercialized in rose, gladiolus, anthuriums, etc.
Over 800 commercial companies are engaged in such
activities all over the world and their number is still
increasing. In India, about 100 companies have plans
for selling tissue-cultured plants and more than 30 are
already in the market with their products. Furthermore,
plants have been regenerated from leaf tissues and
petiole segments of Cyclamen (Geier 1977, Geier et al.
1983, Schwenkel 1991, Dillen et al. 1996), Heuchera
sanguinea (Hosoki and Kajino 2003), and Begonia
(Takayama 1983). In vitro clonal propagation of
Dracaena deremensis has been reported by several
groups (Debergh 1975, 1976, Miller and Murashige
1976, Chua et al. 1981). The first report on shoot
multiplication and rooting of rose (Rosa multiflora) was
made by Elliott (1970) by using shoot tip explants and
later on followed by others (Hasegawa 1979, Skirvin
and Chu 1979, Rout et al. 1989). AboEl-Nil (1983)
reviewed on the large-scale production of Pelargonium
by using different explants. Atta-Alla et al. (1998)
reported the shoot bud regeneration from leaf and
petiole explants of Anthurium parvispathum and
subsequently establishment in soil.
Genetic transformation
Integration of specifically desired traits through
genetic engineering has been possible in some flower
crops. Recent advancements in molecular biology and
genetic transformation have made it possible to identify,
isolate and transfer desirable genes from any living
organism to plants. The possibility of introducing a
single gene for desired trait without disturbing the
plant‟s genetic makeup as normally experienced in
conventional breeding or crop improvement programme
309
Fig 4 Flowers developed by biotechnological techniques
is perhaps the most striking feature in the field of
agricultural biotechnology. The ability to transform
economically important cut flower varieties would
allow the use of molecular genetic techniques to modify
characteristics such as flower color, shape, height and
growth morphology, longevity, horticultural traits,
insect and disease resistance, and resistance to
environmental stresses.
Genetic modification necessitates transformed cells
developing into viable plants. In some cases, labor-
intensive tissue culture can be bypassed using
approaches such as the „„floral dip procedure‟‟ reducing
time and cost. However, this simple technology,
developed with A. thaliana (Clough and Bent 1998),
remains limited to a few species and is not, at present,
generally applicable to ornamental plants. Antagonism
to genetic manipulation, in general, has restricted the
application of the technology to ornamental plants
(Azevedo and Araujo 2003, Phillips 2004).
Unfortunately, there is no uniform system for
international regulation of genetically modified
organisms with significant differences between
countries (Halsberger 2006). The Cartagena protocol
(www.cbd.int/biosafety) is the first attempt to bring
uniformity in laws governing genetic modification and
many countries are adapting these laws to an agreed
consensus on genetically manipulated plants, including
ornamentals.
Genetic engineering of floriculture
Genetic engineering holds tremendous potential for
genetic enhancement of ornamentals. Using traditional
breeding methods, breeders have been able to create
new varieties that have desirable traits but it has its
limitation. One of the main disadvantages of traditional
breeding is the limited gene pool in any single species.
In addition, heterozygous nature of the material makes
the alteration of individual impracticable. This explains
the lack of success of traditional techniques in breeding
an orange petunia or a blue rose. However, availability
of efficient transformation methods to introduce foreign
 Present Status and Scope of Floriculture Developed
DNA can be a substantial barrier to the application of
recombinant DNA methods in some species. Despite
significant advances over the past decades, development
of efficient transformation methods can take many years
of painstaking research. The molecular markers have
facilitated research on genetic variation at the DNA
level. The numerous potential applications of DNA
fingerprinting have brought about their uses in plants
such as in population genetics, parentage testing, and
individual genotype identification and for shortening
breeding programs (Ben-Meir et al. 1997).
Recent advances in genetic engineering makes
itself an alternative technology to be used in
conjunction with traditional breeding for the
improvement of flower crops. Certainly, genetic
engineering has the capability of increasing the gene
pool available for crop improvement. An advantage of
such a genetic engineering approach lies in the ability to
alter a single trait without altering other genetic traits of
the plants. Current efforts are aimed at developing
techniques for high-value flower crops, such as
carnation, chrysanthemum and roses.
Germplasm conservation and characterization of flower
crops
In view of severe threats posed to biodiversity,
primarily of anthropogenic activity, it has become
necessary to conserve the plant genetic resources.
Maintenance in field gene banks and in-site
conservation of germplasm in flower crops are very
difficult and risky. Successful attempts have been made
to develop protocols for in vitro preservation of flower
crops, especially those propagated asexually.
Construction of residential and industrial units over the
orchard land and forests has caused the destruction and
loss of several rare and valuable collections in different
flower crops. Da Silva and Teixeira (2003) reported that
the advances in transgenic biotechnology of members of
the chrysanthemum complex are in part possible due to
improvements and new and significant findings in
regeneration protocols.
This method has superiority over others as it
requires less space and germplasm can be effectively
stored for different storage time. Germplasm can also be
conserved in vitro by tissue culture or cryopreservation.
Development of techniques of molecular taxonomy
RAPD and RFLP in genomic analysis and classification
has opened up new options for germplasm
characterization. For safe movements of germplasm, in
vitro technique is very handy.
Present status
Germany is the largest importer of cut flowers with
the value of 1,321.72m US $. Netherlands has the
maximum area under green houses i e 9000ha out of
which 5000 ha is under floricultural crops. The total
estimated area under flower crops is in Europe (15000-
16000ha), and in the world export of cut flowers in
310
1992, Netherlands exported cut flowers worth
2,253.97m US $ followed by Columbia (340.90) and
Israel (123.11).
As regards the present‟s status of floriculture in
India, it has an estimated area of 37987ha under flower
crops (1992-93) with Karnataka having the maximum
area of 14253ha and Uttar Pradesh being on 7th position
out of 15 places with an area of only 600ha. Though the
Indian share in floricultural export is negligible but still
in 1993-94, India exported floricultural items worth Rs.
188.37 million, with live plants worth Rs. 44.79 million,
cut flowers worth Rs. 119.18 million and other
floricultural products worth Rs. 24.40 million.
The ornamental industry strives for novelty to
generate new products (e g, plants with novel
pigmentation and architecture) at competitive prices.
Consumer purchase is governed largely by plant
appearance, flower color, and tolerance to insects and
pests (Tanaka et al. 2005). Until recently, the
introduction of novel traits into ornamental plants and
the development of new cultivars have been based on
conventional breeding and selection, including the
domestication of wild species and the selection of novel
„„sports‟‟ from popular species already in cultivation.
However, complex polygenic traits such as vegetative
growth and flowering are difficult to manipulate using
this approach and may take considerable time (Mishra
and Srivastava 2004). The restricted gene pool and
failure of distant sexual crosses during conventional
breeding have generated interest in exploiting somatic
cell technologies, including somatic hybridization/
cybridization, exposure of somaclonal variation, and
genetic transformation (Chandler and Lu 2005, Brand
2006), to produce plants to keep pace with the demand
of the rapidly expanding floriculture industry. In nature,
plants compete for light and space, resulting in dwarf
phenotypes being eliminated during conventional
selection. Consequently, dwarfed plants are difficult to
obtain through natural breeding (Busov et al. 2003).
However, novelty may be achieved by regulating plant
stature, that is, by creating compact (dwarf) plants or,
conversely, by increasing plant height. To date, genetic
manipulation programmes have been directed primarily
at manipulating flower colour, as in the first report in
petunia (Meyer et al. 1987). However, the Australian
company Florigene Pty Ltd. is the only one currently
marketing genetically manipulated (GM) ornamental
plants. Seventy-five million plants of its Moonshadow,
Moonlite, Moondust, and Moonshade series of
transgenic carnations, ranging from blue-violet to deep
blue, have been sold in Australia, Japan, and the US in
the last 11 years (Mol et al. 1999, Chandler 2003, Fukui
et al. 2003).
Indian scenario
In India, floriculture industry comprises flower
trade, production of nursery plants and potted plants,
seed and bulb production, micro propagation and
 Sengar et al.
extraction of essential oils. Though the annual domestic
demand for the flowers is growing at a rate of over 25%
and international demand at around Rs. 90,000 crore,
India‟s share in the international market is negligible.
With enormous genetic diversity, a varied agro climatic
condition and versatile human resources, India can tap
its huge floriculture reserves. As per estimates, the per
capita consumption of flowers is the maximum in
Norway ($146) followed by Switzerland ($126) and
Germany ($88), though the maximum consumption of
flowers is in the USA ($12,500 million), Japan ($5465
million) and Italy ($4270 million).
Though floriculture industry has been the
monopoly of a few countries (mainly Netherlands), the
largest trader of floricultural products, with a lion‟s
share of 70% followed by Columbia and Israel with
12% and 6% share of the global floriculture trade. India
is endowed with diverse agro-climatic conditions which
help to grow all kinds of flowers, almost all through the
year, in one part of the country or another. Today, with
the improved communication and transportation
facilities, most kind of flowers are available in all major
markets almost throughout the year. But still, having a
long history of flower production, flowers like many
other horticultural crops, have not yet found place in
our crop statistics estimation programme. Present status
and growing trade is still in infancy. Floriculture and
seeds in India are being viewed as a high growth
Industry. Commercial floriculture has gained
importance over the years. According to a report of the
NHB, the total area under flower crops in 2008-09 was
estimated around 167 thousand hectares, which
included traditional flowers such as marigold, jasmine,
aster, rose, chrysanthemum, tuberose and modern
flowers like coronation, rose, gerbera, gladiolus,
anthodium.
India‟s total export of floriculture and fruit and
vegetable seed products was Rs. 488.74 crores in 2008-
09. There are more than 300 export-oriented units in
India. More than 50% of the floriculture units are based
in south zone mainly in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and
Tamil Nadu. West Bengal, Maharashtra, Rajasthan have
also large areas under floriculture. The domestic flower
production goes on increasing annually. Technical
collaborations with foreign companies have been
approved for India, in order to increase total share in the
floriculture world trade.
Indian floriculture industry has been shifting from
traditional flowers to cut flowers for export purposes.
The liberalized economy has given an impetus to the
Indian entrepreneurs for establishing export oriented
floriculture units under controlled climatic conditions.
In India, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and
Haryana have emerged as major floriculture centers in
recent times. About 167 thousand hectares area is under
floriculture at present. Production flowers are estimated
to be 987 metric tonnes of loose flowers and 113618
million (numbers) of cut flowers in 2008-09.
311
Government of India has identified floriculture as a
sunrise industry and accorded it 100% export oriented
status. Owing to steady increase in demand of flower
floriculture has become one of the important
commercial trades in agriculture. Hence commercial
floriculture has emerged as hi-tech activity taking place
under controlled climatic conditions inside greenhouse.
Floriculture in India is being viewed as a high growth
Industry. Commercial floriculture is becoming
important from the export angle. The liberalization of
industrial and trade policies paved the way for
development of export oriented production of cut
flowers. The new seed policy had already made it
feasible to import planting material of international
varieties. It has been found that commercial floriculture
has higher potential per unit area than most of the field
crops and is therefore a lucrative business. Indian
floriculture industry has been shifting from traditional
flowers to cut flowers for export purposes. The
liberalized economy has given an impetus to the Indian
entrepreneurs for establishing export oriented
floriculture units under controlled climatic conditions.
Agricultural and processed food products export
development authority (APEDA), is responsible for
export promotion and development of floriculture in
India.
Importance and scope
Floriculture is an intensive type of agriculture, and
the income per unit area from floriculture is much
higher than any other branch of agriculture. In the
markets of Delhi and Bombay a single spike of
Qadiolus may sell upto Rs. Four, camation upto Rs. Six,
for Rs. 15-20 and Bird paradise for Rs. 20-25.
Similarly, cut blooms of roses, jasmines, tuberose,
stock, antirrhinum, have a very good market in
metropolitan cities. It is estimated that 50% of the
flowers sold in cities of Madras, Bangalore and Bombay
are utilized for making gajra and veni and upto 70% of
the flowers sold in Calcutta are for decoration purposes.
In 2006, the purchase of ornamental plants in the
US alone was US $20.8 billion (Potera 2007),
emphasizing the major opportunities for development
and sales of existing and new ornamental plants. Tissue
culture approaches, from simple micropropagation of
elite germplasms to high technology transformation of
target plants, can be combined with traditional breeding
to broaden the gene pool available for improvement of
ornamentals and to introduce new, desirable traits. The
development of floriculture based technologies such as
the petunia DNA microarray chip (Koltai et al. 2008)
now makes it possible to identify novel genes and, in
the immediate future, to generate plants with new traits
that appeal to the consumer. Plant hormones control key
aspects of growth and development; chemical growth
regulators act by modifying or substituting the action of
natural hormones. The global use of plant growth
regulators exceeds US $1 billion and increases
 Present Status and Scope of Floriculture Developed
annually, although there has been a recent decline in the
number of chemicals available because of more
stringent regulations (Phillips 2004). A genetic
manipulation approach could reduce the requirement for
synthetic growth regulators. Unfortunately, there has
been considerable resistance to genetically manipulated
products in Europe, although it is likely that the status
of ornamental plants may be reviewed alongside that of
food crops. This is important, as the flower
consumption per capita in Europe is the greatest in the
world. However, outside Europe there has been little
criticism of genetically modified plants (Potera 2007).
Cost of Cultivation Net returns
Crop
(Rs.) (Rs.)
Chrysanthemum 12,000/ha 24,409/ha
Marigold 3904/ha 13,902/ha
Aster 14,000/ha 28,000/ha
Rose 71,200/ha 68617/ha
Jasmine 41,000/ha 10,735/ha
Tuberose 27,327/ha 39,000/ha
Crossandra 17,384/ha 62,880/ha
Anthurium - 3,08,750/ha
The production of live plants in pots/ potted plants
can also be taken up by the farmers, which are today
being extensively used for indoor and outdoor
landscaping. These plants may be flowering constituting
of trees and shrubs or non-flowering which is generally
termed as foliage plants. Considerable financial
investment is needed to counteract the high costs of
developing new cultivars (Robinson and Firoozabady
1993) and obtaining intellectual property rights to
protect new varieties from exploitation by competitors.
Tanaka et al. (2005) indicated that the floriculture
industry would benefit from the introduction of
genetically modified novel traits. Undoubtedly, there is
considerable potential for manipulating GA signaling in
plants, and proof-of-concept has already been
demonstrated. Because plant development is also
affected by other growth hormones, including auxins,
cytokinins, ethylene, brassinosteroids, jasmonic acid,
salicylic acid, and polyamines (Appleford et al. 2008),
it is likely that biosynthetic pathways for these
compounds will become targets for genetic
manipulation in ornamentals. Indeed, modification of
plant stature may necessitate manipulation of multiple
hormonal pathways. Future research must be directed
toward identifying tissue-specific or species-specific
inducible promoters that could, for example, drive gene
expression in vegetative tissues such as those of stem
internodes without affecting flowering and seed
production.
Production and sale of flower seeds, seedlings, and
bulbs also have sizable sale and profits. Bulbous plants
have become more popular in the recent times like
312
Commercially, floriculture can open up great
opportunities for our poor farmers. Our country has
diverse climatic conditions which offer the scope for
growing several kinds of commercial flowers. The
cultivators can deploy a part of their land for growing
commercial and common flowers such as marigold,
China aster tec. Which is do not require much care and
generally earn more profits than many other crops. The
net returns from some of the important crops along with
their cost of cultivation are given below:
Remarks
Seasonal crop
Seasonal crop can be taken up by marginal growers
Seasonal crop
Perennial crop for 10 years. The benefit cost ratio being
2.0, with payback period of 2-3 years
Perennial crop for 8-10 years. The benefit cost ratio
being 3.0 with payback period of 2 years
Perennial crop
Perennial crop
Perennial
gladiolus, tuberose and lilies etc. Hybrid flower seed
production of crop like antirrhinum, stock, sweet pea,
marigold, pansy, calendula, phlox etc fetches higher
profits. Moral extracts is another good business in India.
Damusk rose is being successfully grown in Aligarh
and Lucknow regions of U.P., and parts of Rajasthan
for the production of rose water and Gulkand. Dried
petals are also exported to Middle East. Jasmine
produces concrete @ 3kg/ ton of the flowers which is
sold at the rate of Rs. 8000-10,000 per kg. Similarly,
Tuberose concrete is also being produced in Tamil
Nadu. These extracts are used in the perfumery and
cosmetic industry.
Dry flowers and plants are becoming more popular
due to non-perishability of the produce, leading to
longer life indoors almost all kinds of plants and
flowers are dried and used in bouquets etc. This group
constitutes a major share of the export of our
floricultural products. Major centers of these are
Tuticorin and Calcutta. Another allied branch of
floriculture is landscape gardening which is becoming
popular in the urban areas of our country. The people
today have become conscious of the hazards of
pollution and have understood the importance of plants
in its control. The landscaping opens up avenues for
bioaesthetic planning, control of pollution (air and
noise) and can be used in human welfare for quality
living.
Hence, it could be said that, floriculture is the most
important thrust area of production for our small and
marginal farmers to upgrade their living by earning
more profits from the same area. The production
 Sengar et al.
technology could be provided by the state department of
horticulture and agricultural universities and for initial
investments nodal agencies like nationalized banks,
NABARD, national horticulture board and APEDA
(Agricultural and processed food products export
development authority) could be approached.
CONCLUSION
India‟s floriculture exports are likely to grow to Rs.
700 crore by end of 2010 against projected level of Rs.
1000 crore. The shortfall in target is because of
bottlenecks like poor infrastructure and plant material,
production technology and availability of basic inputs
along with insufficient cold storage facilities. The
setting up of cold storage and cargo handling facilities
at key airports like New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad,
Bangalore, Chennai, Trivandrum and Coachin will take
floriculture exports to the desired direction. The main
thrust of applied research is enhancing tolerance of
crops to biotic and abiotic stresses and improving
product quality, and the priority crops are cereals,
horticultural crops and commercial crops. Therefore,
reduction in yield losses, better product quality and
increase in efficiency of plant breeding are expected to
be major outcomes of plant biotechnology in the near
future. These priorities are broadly in line with the
agricultural development needs of the country.
Ornamental plants are produced mainly for their
aesthetic value, thus the propagation and improvement
of quality attributes such as leaf types, flower color,
longevity and form, plant shape and architecture, and
the creation of novel variation are important economic
goals for floriculturists. Successful in vitro propagation
of ornamental plants is now being used for
commercialization. Many commercial laboratories and
national institutes worldwide use in vitro culture system
for rapid plant multiplication, germplasm conservation,
elimination of pathogens, genetic manipulations, and
for secondary metabolite production. Annually, millions
of ornamental plants are routinely produced in vitro.
The great potential of micropropagation for large-scale
plant multiplication can be tapped by cutting down the
cost of production per plant by applying low-cost tissue
culture, which is to adopt practices and proper use of
equipment and resources to reduce the unit cost of
micropropagule and plant production without
compromising the quality. Bioreactor technology may
cut down the cost of plant production provided proper
precautions are taken to prevent contamination. Somatic
embryogenesis facilitates cryopreservation, synseed
development, mutations, and genetic transformation.
Plant transformation methods and enhanced gene
silencing technology can effectively be used to evaluate
and authenticate newly discovered endogenous genes to
characterize their function in plants as well as to
genetically manipulate trait quality and productivity.

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