Your current browser does not support 'Semantic HTML' or 'CSS Grid'. Please upgrade your browser or use a Chrome or Firefox browser when viewing our website.
Antra Balode
Latvia, a Hot Bed of Lily Hybridizing,
from the Tangos to Present
Antra Balode is from Latvia which has borders with Estonia, Russia, Belarus and Lithuania. Antra will speak about lilies in Latvia, especially focused on both greenish Trumpets and Tango hybrids, as well as Martagons.
Antra began her association with lilies with a job at the Botanical garden of the Latvia University in Riga in the early 1980’s. Director Adolfs Zorgevics and biologist Antra Balode together created many Asiatic and Trumpet varieties.
Since the mid 1990’s, Antra has worked privately in her garden in Saulkrasti, a small town near the Baltic Sea. She maintains a sizable personal collection of hundreds of Asiatic, Trumpet lilies, OT varieties, and some Species lilies. The goal of Antra’s breeding work is to create varieties that would be suitable in the moderate climate; that would survive a wide range of temperatures and wet weather conditions; that would be disease-resistant. She is working with Asiatic, Tango hybrids developed by Latvian breeder Victor Orekhov, as well by some Russian breeders – Margarita Kireeva and N. Korshikova, and breeders from the Netherlands, the United States and Canada.
Antra grows about 150 Lilium varieties and 2000 seedlings. She has registered 62 Lilium varieties in the RHS Lily Register – 54 Asiatic lily varieties, such as ‘Baltā Brigantīna’, ‘Dzeltenais Tango’, ‘Krists’, ‘Nakts Alise’, 3 LA varieties – ‘Pegija’, ‘Rīdzene’ and ‘Sonora’, 5 Trumpets – ‘Aglona’, ‘Elēģija’, 'Vārsma’ and others.
Antra Balode has a PhD degree in agronomy from the Latvia University of Agriculture, specializing in lily breeding. For 15 years Antra was an assistant professor at the Latvia University of Agriculture dealing with a wide range of student’s research work including ‘Evaluation of the propagation of lilies by scales’, and ‘Factors determined lily growing from seeds’. Please review this list of past Publications on Lilium from Antra Balode.
Antra is also the author of the 'Lilies in the Nature and Garden’ book that was published in Latvian during 2020. She also serves as chairman of the Lilium Balticum Society. As a lily grower and breeder for more than 40 years Antra have exhibited lilies at a number of shows.
VIRTUAL AUCTION REGISTRATION!
CONFERENCE REGISTRATION!
Click to Sign-up
for our Newsletter
Support the
2nd Virtual International
Lily Show & Symposium!
The mission of the North American Lily Society, is to promote interest in the genus Lilium, scientific research in its breeding and culture; standardization of its varietal names; the dissemination of information concerning the above and promotion of such other purposes as may advance the culture of lilies.
