Patiently and persistently inserting the pansy blue genes into calluses

It takes as long as one year to produce calluses, so this experiment takes time and requires extreme patience. The researchers patiently devoted themselves to continue the work of introducing the blue genes of pansies into calluses. This was a method originally developed by Suntory. This technique forms the basis of the development of blue roses because it enables the introduction of genes into many rose varieties.

Finally, the first blue roses in the world were born

Around 1998-1999, slightly bluish roses started to bloom. We further continued gene transfer, and due to that effort, roses which accumulated almost 100% of the total blue pigments bloomed. In 2002, we selected transgenic lines of pure blue from them. Finally, the first blue roses in the world were born. Further, we succeeded in propagating these roses by grafting, and confirmed that roses of the same color were produced stably and grown normally.

Pursued blueness by trying various varieties (Senior General Manager Yoshikazu Tanaka Ph.D.)

Reporting the research progress to top management

We were advancing research to develop roses that really would look blue in 1999. It was decided that the progress of the selected research projects should be reported directly to top management twice a year, and the blue rose project was chosen as the subject of the reporting.

I was first told to make a report once in three months, but I told them that I wanted to do so only twice a year, saying “Roses don’t grow in three months” (Smile). It was hard for me to give easy-to-understand explanations to the executives, who were not specialized in this area.

Once I was very careful to make my presentation easy to understand, and one executive said, “Good! Now I know that you will create roses soon.” I still remember the difficulty of preparing presentation.

Promised that blue roses would be produced by September 2002

There was one impressive incident in a report meeting. On that day, I wore a tie with the pattern of blue roses as it was the least I could do then. My senior director happened to wear a tie with blue roses, too, so we said to the vice-president then, “Today we are both wearing ties with blue roses.” Then he said, “You were saying that you were creating blue roses, but you meant you were creating ties with blue roses.” When I heard that, I was already nervous before the presentation, and I could not say even a word in response (Smile).

At this report meeting, in front of the president and the executive vice president at the time, I promised to produce blue roses by September 2002. Because of the pressure, the president asked me, “Haven’t you created blue roses yet?” in my first dream of the new year.

Asking for the judgment of the president; “It is blue!”

We produced roses with the content of blue pigments close to 100%, but whether they really looked blue depended on subjective view. Therefore, we decided to ask for the judgment of the president, and I took the blue roses with me to the president’s office in September, 2002. I had to prepare myself for the worst. In case of being told that the roses were not blue, I prepared presentation materials to be used to make an excuse.

Therefore, I was so relieved when the president said, “They are blue! Good job. Promises are seldom fulfilled.” Later, another researcher talked about that conversation to the president on the occasion of his training, he said, “I said that, partly to flatter him” (Smile). His thoughtful statement to thank me for my efforts encouraged me to produce roses of pure blue.

• Research papers on flower
• Conference presentations on flower