‘Big Yellow’ : Years of Experimenting Result in Legendary African Violet

It has been said that if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door. It might also be said that if you create a new, never-before-seen flower, the world will beat a path to your greenhouse.

That’s what happened to Nolan Blansit, a 40-year-old plant breeder now working in Oberlin, Ohio, who, after years of trial, tribulation, breeding and cross-breeding, finally produced the most sought-after plant in the botanical world: a yellow African violet.

Ever since the African violet was introduced in America in 1924--32 years after it was discovered in Tanzania--professional and amateur breeders alike have tried to create the plant that came to be known in legend and lore as “Big Yellow.”

But serious students of violet genetics knew that a yellow violet was highly unlikely. The pigments that produce the blue, purple, lavender, magenta and pink colors in violets are called anthocyanins, and yellow is not a part of the anthocyanin base.

The only hope for a yellow violet was that a new species might be discovered or that a major mutation might take place, or some foreign gene might be implanted by biotechnology.

But in spite of the fact that the chances of creating a yellow violet by ordinary hybridization were slim at best, the faithful refused to give up. And it was Blansit whose faith was finally rewarded.

According to Jane Birge and Nancy Lawrence, executives of the African Violet Society of America, this discovery will mean hundreds of thousands--perhaps even millions--of dollars to Blansit, who is from southern Missouri.

Although exact figures are difficult to determine, most reliable sources estimate that anywhere from 50 million to 100 million African violets are sold each year in the United States alone--and that number is bound to double or even triple with the new surge of interest Big Yellow is bound to create.

African violets are already secure as the most popular houseplant in America.

The African Violet Society of America, founded in 1946, has grown to be the largest society devoted to a single indoor plant in the world.

“We presently have about 15,000 members and nearly 500 clubs in the United States,” Lawrence said. (California, incidentally, is home to the most members and most clubs.) “And we’ve got almost 100 clubs in other countries. People all over the world grow African violets.”

“When Nolan first called to tell us of his discovery, we pretty much yawned,” said Birge, who edits the African Violet Magazine, which is sent out six times a year to all society members.

“We’d gotten dozens of calls over the years from people claiming to have developed a yellow flower, but the plants had always turned out to be one-time-only mutations.”

“But there was something about Nolan’s call that really piqued our interest,” said Lawrence, the office manager at the society’s headquarters in Beaumont, Tex.

“So when we found ourselves in his neck of the woods--literally, since Nolan lives in the Ozarks--we stopped by to see for ourselves and voila, there it was--Big Yellow! Nolan had done the impossible!”

The two women brought some sample plants back to Texas, but there were skeptics galore.

Many African violet fanciers wondered how an underfunded little grower, working only with his wife in a backwoods hothouse, could produce this miracle that expensive scientific programs had so far failed to achieve.

Given the enormous amount of money involved, perhaps this was just an elaborate con. Maybe Blansit had discovered a way to color the flowers artificially.

So Blansit’s violets were subjected to every conceivable pigmentation test available, and finally, in 1988, independent scientists declared them to be authentic beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Blansit’s search for Big Yellow began in 1977, on his honeymoon. According to Blansit, he and his bride, Cindy, were driving through the Sausalito section of Northern California when Blansit suddenly heard a voice.

“It was clear as a bell,” he recalled. “It said, ‘I want you to trust me for a yellow African violet.’ . . . I pulled the car over to the side of the road, and at first, when Cindy asked me what was wrong, I was afraid to tell her. I figured she’d divorce me right there on the honeymoon. I mean, what kind of loon hears voices?”

However, Cindy, who was working with her husband on breeding Episcias, a close relative of the African violet, knew how much he loved creating new and exciting plants and had often heard him daydream about someday discovering Big Yellow.

The Blansits returned to their Ozark home to begin working on what Blansit was convinced was his destiny--the creation of Big Yellow.

Blansit put his Episcias aside and began breeding African violets with a vengeance.

Almost four years passed, and although Blansit managed to breed some marketable varieties, Big Yellow still had not materialized. And then, in 1981, Blansit spotted a seedling with a tiny glint of yellow near the center of the blossom.

“Most people wouldn’t have seen it,” Blansit said. “But I was looking. I knew someday it would come, and there it was!”

Convinced that this was his “gift from God” and that he could produce a yellow flower from this mutation, Blansit got down to business. Using every breeding and hybridizing technique at his disposal, he tried to reproduce the yellow in another plant.

“I selfed it (a hybridizing method whereby one breeds a plant with both male and female parts on itself), I made out-crosses, I in-bred, I back-bred, and I side-bred,” Blansit recalled. “But nothing worked.”

Then one day Blansit realized that while he’d been working around the clock trying to bring the yellow violet to fruition, his marriage had fallen apart.

There followed a painful three years during which Nolan and Cindy worked on and patched up their marriage. Then Nolan began his quest for Big Yellow anew.

He sowed some seeds he had saved from the earlier plants, seeds that had resulted from three different crosses, and this time he hit pay dirt. Seven seedlings appeared with the same yellow color. Blansit now knew that achieving the yellow violet was only a matter of time.

The scientific evidence was clear: With each new generation, the hybrids would become yellower and yellower.

“It takes at least a year from the time you sow a seed until you get a bloom,” Blansit said, “so I just kept crossing plants and turning generation after generation as fast as I could.”

In 1987, Blansit tried in vain to get funding for his project from commercial growers and other sources, but was unsuccessful.

“It was getting to be a very expensive proposition,” Blansit said, “and I wasn’t sure I had enough money to see it all the way through. But I had a dream, so I kept on going, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, doing whatever I had to do, and the color continued to improve. I knew that sooner or later it would all pay off.”

The payoff began in 1989, when Blansit, confident he was ready to unveil Big Yellow to the African violet world, took several of his blooms to the AFVS National Convention.

This time, the commercial growers lined up to get a piece of the action, and just four months ago, Blansit concluded negotiations with Green Circle Growers of Oberlin, Ohio, where he now supervises the African violet program.

“Green Circle is the third-largest grower in size in the United States,” he said, “and it won’t be long until we’re No. 1.” Right now Green Circle produces about 8 million violets a year, but with the addition of Big Yellow, that figure is expected to skyrocket.

So far, Blansit’s work has led to a vibrant, canary yellow flower. The yellow color has still not spread over the entire blossom, but in the next two or three years, with continued hybridizing, that process will be complete.

Over the past months, Blansit’s violets have been certified by the AVSA, patents are being obtained, and it’s been decided that the plant will be introduced to the public at the Society’s convention in Columbus, Ohio, in 1992.

“We thought that would be a perfect time and place to introduce this miraculous new discovery,” Birge said. “It’s the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the African violet, as well as the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America.”