‘Red Velvet’ : A High-Yielding Standard Gerbera Cultivar With Red and Semi-Double Flowers

A new gerbera cultivar known as ‘Red Velvet’ was bred by the National Institute of Horticultural & Herbal Science in 2015. The scarlet-flowered cultivar ‘Rose’ with a semi-double flower type and green center and the red-flowered cultivar ‘Sabana’ with a semi-double flower type and dark center were crossed from October 2007 to February 2008. Among 187 offspring from this cross, ‘Red Velvet’ was selected, especially for cut flower production after investigating the phenotypic characteristics for eight years (2008–2015). ‘Red Velvet’ is a vigorous standard gerbera cultivar with brilliant red flowers (RHS R45B) and brown center disc florets; it is a semi-double flower type. Its average flower diameter is 12.6 ± 0.5 cm, and its inner ray floret and disc floret diameters are 5.7 ± 0.3 cm and 2.8 ± 0.2 cm, respectively. It has a thick peduncle width, with upper and lower parts being 5.4 ± 0.4 mm and 7.8 ± 0.7 mm, respectively; its long peduncle height is 60.0 ± 8.1 cm. The vase life of ‘Red Velvet’ is 9.8 ± 2.3 days, similar to the standard cultivar. It is a high-yielding cultivar, with an average yield of 48.3 ± 4.8 stems per plant.