Welcome to our website. We hope you will find it offers you a helpful overview of our company, its goals and our activities.
Ornamental Bioscience is a young enterprise with a great advantage – we combine the vast experience and know-how of our joint founders Selecta Klemm and Mendel Biotechnology. This makes Ornamental Bioscience unique: we add to Mendel's proven expertise in genome research, Selecta's decades of experience in breeding, production and marketing.
Our core competence is the development and marketing of transgenic ornamental plants.
The blue carnation, which Selecta Klemm took part in developing, was the first transgenic product to reach the ornamental market while genetic engineering has been established in the agricultural sector for twenty years. Meanwhile transgenic seeds supply over 30% of the world market.
But the prerequisites for horticulture are fundamentally different from those of agriculture. In agriculture, with few exceptions, the aim of genetic engineering of the first and second generation was to add value for producers in the form of characteristics such as herbicide or insecticide resistance.
In the case of horticulture, we will be able to add significant value only by providing traits that are advantageous all along the chain of production from producers, through distributors and retailers to the consumer. Our strategy, focusing on the market has led us to define abiotic and biotic stress tolerance as key characteristics for ornamental plant culture.
OBS is developing products and marketing concepts for transgenic ornamental plants that are resistant to drought, frost, cold, salt and disease. We are currently working on incorporating switch genes – so called transcription factors – into the plants we develop. Switch genes control all important processes in the plant. They are themselves isolated from plants and introduce no foreign characteristics into other varieties, merely activating those genes responsible for strengthening the plant's own natural defense systems that are already present.
We consider this new approach in biotechnology to be of special value ecologically and therefore describe it as “ecological genetic support.”
Our product development will be based on the following strategic pillars:
develop robust, unsusceptible plants with a clear added value for the consumer
open markets for heat, cold or disease resistant varieties; until now, unsatisfactory product characteristics have prevented the development of such markets
reduce the use of energy, insecticide and fertilizer during production, thus conserving the environment
A few examples:
In the main markets of Europe and the United States, Poinsettias have a sales volume of around € 500 million with losses during distribution and retailing of some 8–10% through stress resulting from cold and dryness. To market a plant as a premium product using many marketing channels is thus quite difficult: all too often the consumer is presented with a stricken plant with a shorter life expectancy.
For producers, the temperature-sensitivity of the product in a world where energy costs are rising constantly, is a growing risk factor.
A poinsettia with significantly increased cold and stress tolerance will save energy, minimize losses during handling and please the consumer.
Many applications present themselves for bedding and balcony plants. For example, New Guinea Impatiens, with a turnover of about $140 million are hardly available today in hot and dry regions. In the temperate climate of central Europe, outside planting presents an ever-increasing requirement for regular and generous watering. This traditional market can be reinvigorated with robust, heat-resistant plants with minimal need for attention in summer and during the holiday season.
Increased frost tolerance will allow earlier planting and let gardeners enjoy their flowers longer until late into the autumn.
The application of this "ecological genetic engineering" will develop into an important support system for traditional breeding: the natural process of adaptation that plants undergo in the face of changed environmental conditions, by switching on latent genetic potential, can be accelerated.
Traditional breeding will, as before, maintain its central role. With its new technology, OBS sees itself as a partner for leading breeders in their development of new varieties. Working together with OBS, breeders will not only be able to create premium products; they will also have the benefit of better patent protection. Simple "copy breeding" by which a variety created through decades of development effort is often rapidly reproduced will no longer be possible and long-term investment in breeding will be protected.
The development that I have described will require many years to penetrate the market thoroughly and we will certainly have to overcome challenges. But we have a clearly-defined goal. The potential market for our products and our achievements to date have convinced us that the future for Ornamental Bioscience is bright.
