1. Introduction

In the past 30 years the importance of the lily as a horticultural crop has increased enormously, especially in the Netherlands. This can be demonstrated by the statistical data of the production of ornamental crops in Table 1 (data from LEI/PVS), where the area used for the total production of ornamentals are given. The lily bulb production area increased from about 100 ha in 1966 to about 5000 ha in 2001 resulting in about 1000 million bulbs (see picture). In Table 2 with the list of the most important cut flowers in the Netherlands in 1988/1989/1995 show lily on a fifth place, with a production of more than 200 million stems and buds. Reasons for this increase are the progress in lily breeding, especially from the upright Asiatic and Oriental lilies, the improved possibilities for bulb production (including mechanization of the planting, digging and sorting) and the application of in vitro propagation.

Bulbacreage

In my lecture I will present data about the current state and development of the lily assortment; of particular interest for this symposium are the breeding and culture of Lilium longiflorum. Finally I will show some aspects and recent progress of the lily breeding research at CPRO-DLO (the new name of our Institute, from 1944-1989 it was the IVT {Institute for Horticultural Plant Breeding} and in 1990 CPO{Centre for Plant Breeding Research}). The paper is therefore divided in three parts:

* Developments in the lily assortment (Chapter 2).

* Breeding and culture of Lilium longiflorum (Chapter 3).

* Directions of lily breeding research (Chapter 4).