7/7/2004: Blue roses
 

http://cellar.org/2004/blueroses.jpg

Blue roses. This was thought to be impossible until Suntory and Australian bio venture FlorigenePty, Ltd., figured it out. They took blue color pigment from blue flowers, and then used "recombinant DNA techniques" to add them to the roses. I put quotes around "recombinant DNA techniques" to say that I have no clue what that exactly entails, so if the caption writer got it wrong I got it wrong.

Back in the day there was some sort of CODE that went along with roses... where different colors had different specific meanings, like red for love, white for friendship, yellow for peeing yourself with excitement, and so forth. So what's blue? "I'd like you to join our group of zombies." I dunno.

Looks more like lavender blue......................dilly, dilly. :lol:

They could be "Thankyou for contributing to the cellar" roses.. they match our colours!!

"You take my breath away"

I'll go with "periwinkle."

:eyeball::eyeball::thumb:

we use to do that with daisies in grade school. after you cut them you put them in a glass of water with food color in it and the petals would turn what ever color you had in the water. I'm not impressed. :zzz:

I could be wrong about this, but I think recombinant DNA technology makes it so you don't have to wait for three days for the flowers to suck up the food coloring...

I have to chime in and say, these are lavender roses. I have seen natural roses close to this color. Show me navy blue, genetian blue, or sky blue, and I will be impressed. But mauvish purpley periwinkle roses are not press-release worthy. You've got to get the red out.

Visine gets the red out? :D

How unimpressive.

A little more info from Japan Today (July 1, 2004):

TOKYO — Suntory Ltd said Wednesday it has developed the world's first biotechnology-driven blue roses. In a project Suntory started in 1990 with its Australian bio-venture subsidiary Florigene Pty Ltd, researchers have been trying to develop blue roses by extracting blue-pigment genes from other plants, such as petunias, and implanting them into roses.

Suntory said it eventually succeeded in creating blue pigment in roses by implanting the gene that leads to the synthesis of blue pigment from pansies. Unlike roses created by using conventional breeding technologies, the roses developed in the Suntory project have almost 100% Delphinidin in their petals, which has made new and very different blue roses possible. (Kyodo News)

http://www.salambazar.com/umairsImages/blueRose.jpg

It still doesn't look blue and I'd be bummed if this were the culmination of 14 years of work. I wonder what it smells like.

It reminds me <i>The Glass Menagerie</i> by Tennessee Williams...

That's a pretty uncommon color for roses, I'd figure, no matter how they were grown. Normally all you see is white, pink and red, unless you frequent greenhouses that may have more. I saw some tangerine-y colored ones once at a greenhouse.

I'm with hermex though... show me some ultramarine blue roses and I'll want to know where I can get some. Love me some black roses too.

I think the point is the success of the genetic alteration. the color is nice to demonstrate it, but more important is the WAY they did it. that kind of freaks me out a little. i know theY genetically modify food, and i dont trust that.