A couple of items to ponder.
According to Branch-Smith Publishing Selecta Klemm, a breeder and propagator of vegetative plants based in Stuttgart, Germany, formed a joint venture with Mendel Biotechnology, a functional genomics company in Hayward, Calif., to develop and market transgenic ornamentals. The new entity, Ornamental Bio Resource, combines Mendel's expertise in drought, cold/freeze tolerance, disease resistance and flower stability traits with Selecta's experience in plant transformation technology and marketing. Ornamental BioResource is working on Selecta crops, including petunias, poinsettias, New Guinea impatiens and geraniums. Selecta cooperated in developing a blue carnation with Florigene of Australia."
Then there is this story.
"Watch for a peat shortage by spring 2007". Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss Assoc., cites a "very poor" harvest in eastern Canada because of an "exceptionally wet summer" and an average harvest in western Canada. "As of Aug. 31, only 66% of this year's requirements have been harvested in Canada. Reducing the daily harvest also increases the cost per bale."
I don't know what to say about the blue carnation. I know blue camellias have been worked on, but none developed. What's next?
The peat moss shortage will impact soil conditioners and potting mixes that have peat as an ingredient. So even if you don't use peat by itself, it is a component in so many soil less mixes that the price of those products is bound to go up as the scarcity of the peat works it way through the system.