坂嵜さんは、サントリーでサフィニアなどを育種。プルーブン・ウイナーズに移籍したあとも、世界の園芸界を変えることに功績してきた。90年代のガーデニングブームの最高の貢献者だろう。その功績が認められ、夏のオハイオショートコースで表彰されることになった。奥さんとふたりで参加するとのこと。
Greenhouse Growerの2017年7月号に、記事として掲載されることになっている。その最初の部分を引用する。坂嵜さんの功績と育種の歴史を紹介している。日本人にとっても、JFMAにとっても名誉なことだ。
”Ushio Sakazaki’s Breeding Excellence Transforms the Green Industry”
Greenhouse Grower July 2017、By Karli Petrovic
Greenhouse Grower July 2017、By Karli Petrovic
It’s a green industry tale as old as time: Two passionate plant people build a business and have kids. After running away to college or pursuing other careers, the children return to the fold, realizing their love for horticulture was there all along. Ushio Sakazaki’s path to plant breeding greatness follows a similar trajectory. His father was a botanist, who passed on a deep respect for beautiful flora to his son. Sakazaki got his start at the Suntory Company growing grapes in the Brazilian rainforest in 1984. The company was developing an inexpensive white wine, but poor-quality grapes brought the project to a halt.
That’s when fate took over. While in Brazil, Sakazaki encountered a petunia he’d never seen anywhere else. The carpet-like plant was essentially a groundcover with thousands of flowers blossoming from each individual plant. Sakazaki saw an opportunity to bring something wholly new to the Japanese market, and he took it. “It was so beautiful,” Sakazaki says. “At the time, there wasn’t anything vegetative or creeping on the market.”
Surfinia was born two years later in a breeding facility focused on roses. The cross between wild and domestic petunia genetics was a big hit with consumers across the globe. Sakazaki would continue to use his signature breeding method to gift the industry with some of its most popular plants, even founding and running his own breeding company, Plant 21 LLC. Today, many of his creations are sold and marketed under the Proven Winners brand. While consumers are familiar with the crowd-pleasing Supertunia, Superbells, and Superbena collections,
From Supertunias to Superbells, this innovative Japanese breeder wins Greenhouse Grower’s Medal of Excellence Award for Industry Achievement for using wild genetics to create game-changing plants that help consumers reconnect with the beauty of nature.
Plant breeder Ushio Sakazaki went from growing wine grapes in Brazil to breeding Surfinia and Supertunia petunias and and other stand-out varieties.
That’s when fate took over. While in Brazil, Sakazaki encountered a petunia he’d never seen anywhere else. The carpet-like plant was essentially a groundcover with thousands of flowers blossoming from each individual plant. Sakazaki saw an opportunity to bring something wholly new to the Japanese market, and he took it. “It was so beautiful,” Sakazaki says. “At the time, there wasn’t anything vegetative or creeping on the market.”
Surfinia was born two years later in a breeding facility focused on roses. The cross between wild and domestic petunia genetics was a big hit with consumers across the globe. Sakazaki would continue to use his signature breeding method to gift the industry with some of its most popular plants, even founding and running his own breeding company, Plant 21 LLC. Today, many of his creations are sold and marketed under the Proven Winners brand. While consumers are familiar with the crowd-pleasing Supertunia, Superbells, and Superbena collections,
From Supertunias to Superbells, this innovative Japanese breeder wins Greenhouse Grower’s Medal of Excellence Award for Industry Achievement for using wild genetics to create game-changing plants that help consumers reconnect with the beauty of nature.
Plant breeder Ushio Sakazaki went from growing wine grapes in Brazil to breeding Surfinia and Supertunia petunias and and other stand-out varieties.
（後略）
