Chrysanthemum hybridization in 21^st century – A review

Chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum grandiflora Ramat. Syn. Dendranthema grandiflora Tzvelev.) is the second most popular ornamental plant in the global flower industry used as cut flower, loose flower, potted flowering plants and for garden display with abundance of chrysanthemum cultivars available in the world. Today's modern chrysanthemums are the result of repeated crossing between the wild species and its wild relatives in nature with spontaneous mutations occurring in the genotypes. Hybridization played an important role in the evolution of chrysanthemum making it genetically highly heterozygous with different ploidy levels as a result of self-incompatibility reaction present in most of the species. Hence, among the different conventional and advanced breeding methods, intergeneric and interspecific hybridization along with conventional cross breeding between parental cultivars with contrasting target traits is still the most effective way to develop new cultivars to fulfil the changing demands of chrysanthemum lovers with new innovative and attractive cultivars.