GoKawiilSuntory engineers rose with genuinely blue petals using four foreign genes
Researchers at Suntory Global Innovation Center in Kyoto inserted genes from Canterbury bells, wishbone flowers and clustered gentian into a pink rose to produce both blue pigments and colorless co-pigment molecules that deepen color. The combination yielded flowers rated violet-blue on a standard color chart, a shade beyond the purplish tone of Suntory's earlier 2004 genetically modified rose. The company announced the results August 25 at the International Horticultural Congress in Kyoto, noting the plants stayed blue through seven years of greenhouse trials in Japan and three years of field trials in Colombia.