Mark Brand

Our breeding efforts are focused on development of new ornamental plants that are sustainable in the landscape and provide solutions to landscape issues such as invasiveness, support of pollinators, desire for compact plants, and superior performance under stressful conditions. Over the last two decades the Brand lab has produced 33 new plant introductions, 27 licensed plants, 33 royalty generating cultivars, 16 plant patents, and 3 registered trademarks. Plants have been licensed by prominent national branding programs including Proven Winners, Better Homes & Gardens/Walmart, Ball Horticulture, Monrovia, First Editions, American Beauties and SynRG. Significant plant material contributions have been made with sterile Japanese barberries, dwarf butterfly bushes, chokeberries (Aronia), cold hardy rhododendrons, and sand cherries. The Brand lab has also introduced the NativeStar® series of improved native shrubs. Breeding approaches include ploidy manipulation, mutation breeding and interspecific and intergeneric hybridization to create new plants. Current breeding efforts are focused on Pieris, Clethra, shrub dogwoods, yellow rhododendron, and native shrubs. Large-fruited aroniaberry (Aronia mitschurinii) is a new fruit crop that produces berries that look similar to blueberries and contain very high levels of antioxidant anthocyanins and polyphenols. The Brand lab has been working to determine the complex ploidy genetics of Aronia, uncover the intergeneric origins of the large-fruited forms, and move forward with breeding to expand the genetic base of this emerging fruit crop. Other Aronia work is focused on crop production looking at grafting, pruning and fertilization. My industrial hemp research, in collaboration with Jessica Lubell, is focused on optimizing tissue culture micropropagation, development and evaluation of feminized seed for production, and ploidy breeding for the development of new and improved industrial hemp germplasm. Woody landscape plants and nursery crops Ornamental plant breeding Aroniaberry fruit production