Accidental petunia gene theft.

I think I'm accidentally stealing patented genes. Of a petunia all things, too!

I always say that I hate petunias... it is a classic case of graduate school research induced loathing. Spend enough time doing research on them, and you'd hate them too. But I do have a few in my garden every year. Not the normal ones -- I grow a raggedy, sprawling mess, descended from hybrids between Petunia axillaris, P. exerta, with a wee bit of P. integrifolia for good measure.

They're nothing like the neat, tidy little moundy commercial varieties, but I like them, especially because they're powerfully fragrant. Every year I sniff them all, note the most fragrant ones, and save seed from them for the next year, along with some seeds of anything else that I like particularly well. This isn't a breeding project aimed at commercial release, just a pleasant side note in my garden.

But this year I'm afraid they've crossed into legally murky territory... Because of this:

This is one of my plants this year... and honestly, I kind of love it. The color is cool, but more importantly, it is by far the best and strongest scented petunia I've grown, even during the day (most petunias are most fragrant at night). But the problem? It looks to me a lot like the variety 'Dusty Rose'. Which the couple next door grew in my old neighborhood. I'm fairly confident that this color pattern popped up because a bee or moth carried pollen from their 'Dusty Rose' to my rambly, weedy, petunia patch.

Which normally wouldn't be a problem. But 'Dusty Rose' is protected by a utility patent.

Most patented plants have "Plant Variety Protection" -- which means you aren't allowed to clone the variety (cuttings, division, tissue culture) without permission of the patent holder. So you can't take cuttings of a 'Knock-Out' rose without permission of the breeder. But, you can collect seeds from your 'Knock-Out' and grow them and even, if you wanted to, get your own plant variety protection on the seedlings.

But increasingly new annuals like petunias are being protected with utility patents, which prohibit not just unauthorized cuttings of the plant, but any unauthorized breeding with the plant. So you can't save seeds, or pollinate another plant, or, you know, let the neighborhood bees slip some pollen into your population. This is famously the type of patent used on genetically engineered varieties of corn and soy beans, but is now increasingly being used for conventionally bred varieties of petunias, impatiens, even lettuce.

I'm pretty sure that the patent holder, (Ball Horticultural in this case, though all the big breeding companies are using these types of patents now) owns the rights to this petunia... To be sure, they almost certainly don't care as long as I don't try to make money off this seedling or any of its siblings. It wouldn't be worth their time or money (or bad PR) to sue me for a silly seedling in my garden.

But still... I kind of don't like feeling like a company has ownership over my very personal weedy, rambling, fragrant, petunia patch. I could yank out the individuals with the tell-tale yellow centers to the flowers, but that wouldn't actually guarantee that the patented genes aren't in other individuals in the population. And it IS kinda pretty. So I think I'll keep it. Hopefully I don't get sued.