Examining Brassica ‘Purplicious’ crop | Rick Grazzini
Rick Grazzini’s career path to his current role as owner of GardenGenetics, a plant breeding company behind many popular cultivars of artemisia, dianthus, lantana, and more, did not follow a straight line. In fact, there have been several detours along the way, from education to commercial breeding, and businesses that have come and gone.
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However, Grazzini’s entrepreneurial spirit and desire to follow his own interests eventually guided him to start GardenGenetics in 2006. Today, the company has released about 110 new vegetatively propagated plant varieties into the market, most of which are patented, or are patent pending.
Grazzini, Greenhouse Grower’s 2024 Industry Achievement Award winner, is well-respected by his peers because he’s an independent breeder who sees the benefits that both large and small breeders bring to the floriculture industry. He openly shares his wisdom and enjoys mentoring younger breeders around the world.
A Diverse Background
Grazzini’s interest in plant genetics actually began with vegetables. While teaching high school in the late 1970s, he traded letters with Kent Whaley, a colleague who ran Seed Savers Exchange, and was interested in learning more about the challenges involved in breeding plants. As Grazzini’s own interest in plants continued to grow, he decided to enter grad school and spent two years studying plant breeding and genetics at Purdue University. He eventually left grad school to start a new seed company which, in his own words, “flopped because I had no idea how to run a business at the time.”
Following that humbling experience, Grazzini took a couple of years off before re-entering the seed industry and working with Gary Grimes, who had just bought H. G. German Seeds.
“He offered me the chance to be the company’s seed buyer, which opened me up to the world of flower seeds and varieties,” Grazzini says. “I had no idea about that industry at the time, but fortunately I was mentored by a number of big names in the floriculture industry who were helpful in getting me started.”
Grazzini eventually left that company, went back to grad school, then helped open a plant chemistry lab with a business partner. When that company expanded to the point where it became too difficult to run between the two of them, Grazzini and his partner sold that company, and Rick used the proceeds from the sale to start GardenGenetics as an independent plant breeding company.
Finding His Niche in Breeding
As an independent breeder, Grazzini says he is always looking for the “negative space” where other plant breeders might not be working. This space may be under-targeted plant categories, or where plant productivity outweighs looking good in a photo.
“That pretty flower that looks great won’t make the grower any money if it only looks great for one week out of the year,” Grazzini says. “The grower is looking for turns and uniformity across plant series. There’s a long list of plants that were hot at first but dropped off quickly because they were not producible.”
This independent approach helps GardenGenetics partner with and license other breeding companies across the industry.
“We look for the areas where other breeders may choose not to be, and while these may be small niches, they can be lucrative if we license them to the right people,” Grazzini says. “The chances of our company succeeding in broader categories such as petunias or calibrachoas are rare, especially once you factor in the fixed costs associated with bringing those plants to market.”
Playing Favorites
Asking a plant breeder to choose their favorite introductions over the years is like asking a parent to name their favorite child. However, Grazzini does mention a few.
“I like thinking about what growers need and trying to make plants that are easier to produce, quicker to grow, are better branched, root easier, and are disease and insect resistant,” Grazzini says. “Making a new variety is the easier part of the process; convincing a grower that it will make them money is harder.”
Here are a few of Grazzini’s favorite plants:
- “I’m proud of some of the work I’ve done with pelargoniums, particularly interspecific varieties with variegated foliage or with gold foliage.”
- “Dümmen Orange licensed the Lantana ‘Havana’ series from me. The market needed a small, compact lantana.”
- “I’m really proud of what I’ve done with the Syringa ‘New Age’ series from Star Roses and Plants. We saw a seedling that was unusual, and I crossed my lilac breeding into that seedling. Three generations later, we had a plant that branched well, was early to flower, and quickly filled the container.”
A Future of Innovation
As the plant breeding industry continues to progress forward, Grazzini says he’s excited about the tools that will enable a tremendous amount of change, from pathogen testing to gene editing.
“The pathogen testing we have today is remarkable, and we’re now using tests similar to immunoassays like we used for COVID-19 testing, and even beyond that,” Grazzini says. “These tests are so sensitive, it’s pretty much impossible to get to a zero level.”
Grazzini’s concerns lie in how some of this new technology, such as CRISPR, will be licensed.
“The big breeding company you’re working with now becomes your business partner when commercializing new varieties,” he says. “In time, the patents will run out and licensing will become more readily available. We’re already seeing it with the glow-in-the-dark Firefly Petunia as well as purple-fleshed tomato varieties.”
When it comes to working with younger breeders, Grazzini tells them to first develop a vision and see the product they’re working toward.
“You need to know what you want it to be before you begin, and you also need to look at the market and see what’s already out there,” he says. “I have a well-defined process that I go through, and when I mentor or train young people, it forces me to be more methodical about what I do and how I do it.
Grazzini is concerned about whether there are enough young breeders coming into the market, if they have had enough practical training, and if there is so much information available to them that it becomes overwhelming. On the flip side, he says the tools ornamental breeders have access to today not only make the impossible possible, they also help the breeder understand what both growers and consumers need.
“Because of that, you’re going to continue seeing so many new and exciting innovations in breeding,” Grazzini says. “Whether it’s flavor, color, fragrance, or disease resistance, this type of progress will not only move quickly, it will also become simpler to use.”
