bild

Near Hamburg, Germany. In the breeding house for cut roses of the company Kordes & sons. The breeding manager for the cut roses section of the company, Matthias Bleecker (l.), Ms. Britta Hahn selecting new varieties. ..|| Observations are typed into the computer. A white stick next to the rose means a .death sentence. The plant will be moved to the compost. In this large breeding house of the company Kordes & Soehne about 5000 new plants wait for their selection..The art of breeding. Two long-established family businesses in the northwest of Hamburg /Germany, breed and produce about 50 percent of all garden and cut rose varieties currently grown world wide. The companies Rosen-Tantau and W. Kordes' Soehne. Each spring after a painstakingly elaborate crossing process about 100 000 new roses are produced by hand, carefully putting pollen on stamps. In the fall about 80 000 hips are left. Each is individually numbered, cut with sharp kitchen knives, in winter a total of one million seeds are sown. In the next eight years, 99.9 percent of the new varieties are taken out to the compost. Only four or five .varieties make it to market. (KEYSTONE/LAIF/Hans-Juergen Burkard)