The anthurium industry has come a long way since UH professor Haruyuki Kamemoto began breeding varieties for commercial development in the 1950s. Then a devastating bacterial blight put many growers out of business. UH is hopes to solve the blight problems through researcher Anne Alvarez's work. One such technique tracks bacterial activity within the plant leaves by x-ray detection of a bioluminescent bacterium.
Hybridization uses cross pollination to introduce desirable characteristics from two parent plants.
The genetic engineering approach introduces into the plant a potent bacteria-killing gene that was first derived from the giant silk moth and is now synthesized for such use. This is the University Report, I'm Tracy Orillo Donovan.