Prof. Dr. Soner Kazaz from the Faculty of Agriculture Plants Department in Ankara University developed Turkey’s first local rose breed with his team of 17 people. The cut roses are developed through the hybrid method of various local roses in Turkey from nature and roses from abroad have been cultivated in 20 different sub-varieties.
The first demand for the local rose breed came from the Netherlands. Prof. Kazaz noted that there are around 200 rose varieties in the world and around 45 rose varieties in Turkey however none of the varieties in Turkey are commercially traded.
Soner Kazaz: “We have set a goal of breeding a local rose variety to be commercially traded. We have created hybrids from many varieties that are available in the Turkish landscape with varieties from Kenya, Brazil, and Colombia. The process took 6 years and we finally managed to develop our own local variety.
Turkey has paid a total of 2.6 million USD in 2019 to import 18.5 million stems of cut roses and with this local variety, we are not looking to cut down the cut rose imports of our country but also to create an additional source of revenue by exporting this variety. We have already received a lot of interest from the Netherlands, and we are about to reach an agreement with a top-3 rose trading company in the world.“
Source: Haber7