2. Developments in the lily assortment.

When we look at the statistical data of the past 25 years, the developments in production area and assortment are tremendous (BKD/PVS, 1971-1991), Fig. 1 shows that the total area of lily bulbs grown in the Netherlands increased from 79 ha in 1964 to 228 in 1970, to 3570 ha in 1996. Till 1985 especially the Asiatic hybrid group contributed to this increase, while in 1989/90 the production of this group decreased and the Oriental and Lilium longiflorum started their increase. In 1996 for the first time the acreage of Oriental bulbs was larger than that of the Asiatic group.

The expansion of the Asiatic lilies, especially the upright facing types, can be ascribed to parallel breeding developments in the USA, Japan and the Netherlands from wild species in the section Sinomartagon like L. tigrinum, L. bulbiferum, L. dauricum, L. cernuum and L. concolor. During the last 50 years USA have played an important role in lily breeding. University research workers (e.g. Isabella Preston, Emsweller) and many professional and amateur breeders in the USA and Canada provided us with a number of new Asiatic lilies. Important breeders are Jan de Graaff (still famous because of 'Enchantment' the cultivar that dominated the assortment with Connecticut King) Oregon Bulb Farms (OBF), Stone and Payne (with their Connecticut hybrids). The last 20 years several Dutch commercial breeders have also been active in lily breeding e.g. Bischoff Tulleken, Wieringerwerf with breeder Piet Schenk, which produce every year almost a million seedlings. Some of their cultivars are 'Aristo', 'Compass' and 'Snowstar'. Vletter and De Haan, Rijnsburg, a very active firm, released a number of important cultivars like 'Mont Blanc', 'Avignon', 'Gran Paradiso', 'Elite', 'Vivaldi', 'Romano' and 'Solemio'. Laan Brothers, Zwaagdijk is already a longer existing firm, their main cultivars are 'Sirocco', 'Electric' and 'Bright Beauty'. From Hoff, Steenbergen the distinctive 'Festival' and 'America', 'Quito' and 'Blue Eyes' can be mentioned. From De Jong, Andijk lilies 'Sarina' and 'Mona' and 'Esra' are worthwhile to mention. Some other new breeding companies are Fa Paauw / Imanse, Rijnsburg and Lijbelmex, Hillegom. Important characteristics of their breeding products are upright facing, a range of colours from orange, red, yellow to pink and white, a short forcing time, resistance to leaf scorch, a good keeping quality, year round forcing ability and good bulb growing.

In recent years the breeding within the oriental hybrid lily group, developed from the species L. auratum, L. speciosum, L. rubellum has been grown till the most significant hybrid group. A stimulus to use these species for cut flower production was the introduction of 'Star Gazer', the first upright facing oriental hybrid. In 1991 'Star Gazer' was far the most important lily cultivar with a bulb growing area of more than 500 ha. In 1996 this cultivar is with 376 ha still the number one. Some other cultivars are 'Casa Blanca', 'Acapulco', 'Con Amore', 'Berlin', 'Mediterranae' and 'Marco Polo' (Vletter and De Haan), 'Noblesse', 'Pompei' and 'Cassandra' (Bischoff Tulleken), 'Merostar' and 'Muscadet' (Imanse/Paauw) and 'Le Reve'. The main objectives for this 'Aristocrats of lilydom' (as McRae called them) are an improved bulb production, resistance to diseases (e.g. Fusarium, virus) and upright facing flowers.

In Fig. 2 the development of the L. speciosum and L. longiflorum cultivars of the last 25 years is presented graphically. It is clear that the L. speciosum cultivars lost their place due to the increase of the Oriental group, while the area of L. longiflorum cultivars enlarged enormously. This increase is especially due to two cultivars 'Snow Queen' and 'Gelria'. In the second part of my lecture I will go more in detail into the research extended at CPRO-DLO in order to establish a L. longiflorum bulb culture.

Besides active breeding companies, an important factor which contributed to the success of the lily culture in the Netherlands is the application of rapid clonal multiplication in vitro of virus free stocks of lily (Asjes, 1989; Derks & Hendriks, 1990). New cultivars can be introduced very fast and healthy. The more than 30 tissue culture companies in the Netherlands produce every year more than 10 million lily bulblets as starting material for our growers. Finally the concentration and organization of the commercial bulb companies and the extensive bulb research (especially at the LBO, The Laboratory for Bulb Research, Lisse) have contributed to the success (Boontjes et al. 1990; Anonymous, 1991; Van Nes, 1991).

In the last part of this paper I will turn back to the lily breeding research executed at CPRO-DLO the Research Institute where I am working (Chapter 4).