Horticulturist's work still gracing gardens

The new year brings new varieties of flowers, vegetables, fruits, roses, trees and shrubs. Some may think these introductions just happen, but they don't. Breeding plants takes lots of time and effort.

I recently visited the home of famed horticulturist Luther Burbank in Santa Rosa, Calif. Burbank lived there for more than 50 years and conducted plant-breeding experiments that brought him world renown.

Burbank did his work without the benefit of genetic engineering, sophisticated computers, international corporate support or other tools that modern-day breeders have at their disposal. And no one has ever been as prolific in the number of new plants introduced, many of which are still important commercial varieties today.

He developed 113 varieties of plums and prunes; 35 varieties of fruiting cacti; 16 kinds of blackberries; 13 raspberries; 11 each of plumcots and quinces; 10 each of apples, strawberries and cherries; eight peaches; six chestnuts; five nectarines; four each of grapes and pears; three walnuts; two figs; and one almond.

Add to that nine different kinds of grains, grasses and other forages, 26 kinds of vegetables and 91 kinds of ornamentals, and it is easy to see that this reigning champion of plant breeding will not likely be unseated.

Burbank was born in Massachusetts in 1849. Although he received little more than a grade-school education, he showed interest in nature and mechanics at an early age.

At 21 he purchased 17 acres of land near Lunenberg, Mass., and began a 55-year plant-breeding career. He knew that better plants could be developed through natural selection and new varieties created through crossbreeding, or hybridization.

Burbank developed his first successful plant through selection. In 1871 he found a potato seed ball and planted its 23 seeds in a special plot. One plant produced many large, firm, brown-skinned potatoes.

Burbank replanted these and reaped a small harvest of fine potatoes. The "Burbank" russet potato is still widely grown today and is the parent of all the world-famous Idaho potatoes grown by our neighbor to the north.

Burbank sold the rights to the potato that bears his name for $150. He used the money to travel to California, having determined to move to Santa Rosa, where three of his brothers had already settled.

It is interesting to note that after arriving in California Burbank grew more than a half-million potato seedlings. Despite his intensive hybridization program, he never produced another successful potato variety.