Rutgers Agricultural Products
Rutgers University has a long and proud history of breeding agricultural crops with improved qualities to meet the needs of selected industries. Learn more
Breeding Excellence with Rutgers Agricultural Programs
Rutgers, through the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (NJAES), offers a wide variety of agricultural products including cranberries, dogwoods, basil, hazelnuts, turfgrass, and more. If you have additional questions about any of our agricultural breeding programs, please contact us for more specific information.
Our Products
Cranberries
Over the last two decades, Rutgers has conducted cranberry research and developed many varieties for commercial use, offering improved qualities and performance.
Dogwoods
The Rutgers dogwood breeding program has produced many hybrid dogwoods with improved performance and disease resistance, offering exciting and unique varieties.
Basil
Sweet basil is the most commercially important annual culinary herb crop grown in the U.S. and one of the most popular garden herbs.
Turfgrass
Since 1996, the Rutgers Turfgrass Program has generated over 10,000 new germplasm sources, resulting in the largest collection of cool-season turfgrass in the world with improved pest and stress tolerance.
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Discover all of our agricultural products.
Rutgers Scarlet Fire® Dogwood
Rutgers Scarlet Fire® Dogwood
Award-Winning
A world-renowned dogwood tree developed at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, was named a Gold Medal Plant by the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society (PHS) in 2022.
Introduced in 2017 and created in part by Thomas Molnar, PhD, an associate professor of plant biology within the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, the Scarlet Fire® dogwood tree is available throughout the world. It is one of six plants included in the 2022 PHS Gold Medal Program - Outstanding Plants for the Mid-Atlantic Garden.
“One of the things that makes this very special is that the plant was chosen by a panel of nursery owners, horticulturists, expert gardeners, and professional growers for inclusion in the Gold Medal Program, which is exciting as it validates our efforts to release the best new dogwoods we can for homeowners and the nursery and landscape industries in the region,” said Molnar.
Magnificent
Besides being strong and durable enough to withstand the diseases and insects that decimated the native flowering dogwoods in Central New Jersey, the Scarlet Fire® dogwood is also much more colorful than any other of its species; it is the first-ever dark-pink blooming kousa dogwood, and the blooms last 6-8 weeks.