Dans Papers - May 18, 2007 - Dr. Bridgen Creates A New Flower

On the North Fork there are many extraordinary individuals who do unordinary things. Once such person is Dr. Mark Bridgen, who is director of Cornell University's Long Island Horticulture Research and Extension Center in Riverhead. Mark is basically spending his time trying to engineer better flowers for the future. One of his latest successful projects is the soon to be released Mauve Majesty which is a new Alstroemeria hybrid. Alstroemeria is also know as Liles-of-the-Incas and are seen everywhere from hotels to fancy restaurants because they do not wilt for up to two weeks. In fact they are the fifth most popular cut flower in this country. Mauve Majesty is the sixth cultivar that Mark has patented for the Cornell University through his cultivations.

Dr. Bridgen, of Southold, is also a professor of horticulture at Cornell besides being the director of its Research and Extension Center. The Mauve Majesty has a long outdoor blooming season. Liking full sun and good drainage, it blooms in May and usually last until the first frost and then reappears the next spring. The growing zone for the North Fork is zone seven. The Mauve Majesty thrives in this zone and can exist is colder zones s as low as zone five.

It took five years to develop this hybrid, which included testing it and growing in large enough quantities to sell. Dr. Bridgen predicts that most likely, many local nurseries will have Mauve Majesty by next spring.

Mauve Majesty was tested in both Ithaca, New York and out on Long Island to test its winter hardiness its survival of three winters was considered acceptable. Many times, plants are sent to nurseries across the country to get feedback and relevant data. Research always takes time and can be tedious, but Dr. Mark Bridgon believes Cornell University has a great program. Cornell University reproduces these flowers in moderate quantities. For example the, Sweet Laura, the only fragrant cultivar in the whole world has approximately 55,000 propagated a year.

The hybrid is sterile to protect the patent and unlicensed reproduction. This means they cannot be found in seed form. In fact the hybrid is created by cloning, something that has been done in the horticulture field since biblical times.

Mauve Majesty parent flowers come from Brazil and Chile. Alstroemeria Aurea comes from southern Chile and gives the new hybrid certain winter flower hardiness. The other parent flower was developed by Cornell University using both a Brazilian and Chilean flower in order to make it stay in bloom for a long time when grown outdoors and have year round, thus never going dormant while grown in a greenhouse.

Although plant and flower patents are relatively new at Cornell University other new flowers and plants are in the wings, in final stages of being tested and procured. Recently some grape cultivars have been patented. Perhaps as many as four more plants may be near the patent stage.

With so much of the plant and flower research being done at Cornell University's Riverhead location and the research there being supervised under the watchful eye of it's director Dr. Mark Brigdon the North Fork is positioned for new exciting discoveries and creations.