Mar 18, 2016

2016 Marks Historic Year for Sakata

On Jan. 16, Scott Kelly, expedition commander on the International Space Station, tweeted a photo of a blooming zinnia at the International Space Station 250 miles above earth. The #SpaceFlower, as Kelly hashtagged in his twitter post, was Sakata Seed’s ‘Profusion Orange’ zinnia.

The zinnia space cultivation began Nov. 16, 2015 by astronaut Kjell Lindgren as part of the Veggies experiment, which tasked astronauts with the challenge of autonomous gardening in deep space. As part of the Veggie system, Lindgren activated rooted “pillows” of Profusion 5 Color Mix zinnia seeds in November of 2015.

Kelly’s eye for gardening along with the (on Earth) Veggie team’s creation of the Zinnia Care Guide for the On-Orbit Gardener resulted in the first bloom — reported shortly thereafter, on Jan. 12.

However, the Sakata #SpaceFlower was not the company’s only historic landmark for 2016, Sakata said. This year also marks the 10th birthday of Sakata’s impatiens hybrid, ‘SunPatiens.

After ten years of research and development, SunPatiens was commercially launched in 2006. The first of its kind, SunPatiens proved to be the solution to issues such as impatiens only thriving in shade and susceptibility to downy mildew, Sakata said.

A celebration of these achievements will be on display at Sakata’s California Spring Trials display this April.

In addition to the birthday celebration, Sakata will be debuting an array of new varieties. Some new varieties added to the collection this year include ‘Majorette’ gerbera, ‘Ping Pong’ gomphrena, ‘Planet’ delphinium, ‘Bloomingdale II’ ranunculus and new ‘SunPatiens’ and cyclamen colors.

Read the full zinnia space story by clicking here.