Landscape and Nursery - Rutgers Dogwood Breeding Program - Starlight Dogwood

I recently attended the Northeast branch meetings of the American Society for Horticultural Science at Rutgers University in NJ. There was a great presentation on the breeding programs at Rutgers in the ornamentals area. The following is another new release from the Dogwood breeding program that you all should watch for in the future from nurseries.

Starlight®
Cornus x ‘KN4-43’U.S. Plant Patent No. PP 16,283

Cornus x ‘KN4-43’ Starlight® is an advanced interspecific hybrid of Cornus kousa and C. nuttallii, which exhibits the vigorous nature and the floral display of large, white bracts of plants of C. nuttallii and the dark, glossy green foliage and disease and insect resistance of plants of C. kousa.

Plants of this hybrid grow very vigorously and become erect, uniformly wide, and densely branched and foliaged. They have reached heights of over 8.8 meters tall and spreads of over 7 meters in diameter in 30 years. One-year liners of this hybrid propagated in Oregon by budding are nearly twice the size of one-year liners of C. kousa as the hybrid liners typically are 1.2 meters in height and are very stout.

Starlight® hybrid plants are vegetatively hardy in USDA Plant Hardiness Map Zone 6a (-5o to -10oF.) and exhibit good floral display in areas of USDA Plant Hardiness Map Zone 7a (+5o to 0o F.). No insect or disease problems have been observed during the twenty-eight years the original F1 interspecific hybrid seedling has been tested in the field.

This hybrid of Cornus kousa x C. nuttallii (‘KN4-43’, Starlight®), along with ‘KN30-8’ Venus®, are the first two cultivars of Rutgers University’s Jersey Star™ series of hybrid dogwood (C. kousa x C. nuttallii) to be released from the Woody Ornamentals breeding Program at Cook College and the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. Others will be released to the nursery industry soon.

For more information visit the website http://agproducts.rutgers.edu/starlight.html