Seems like they need to remove any of the Red genes?

No, the trial was only conducted for three years, presumably because that's how long they budgeted. I don't think they actually stopped producing blue flowers at that point.

I think it's certain the seeds will not 'come true' -- the story suggests they spliced a little something in from every known blue flower -- gentian, delphinium, campanula etc etc Don't know for sure but feel: good luck hitting all the keys with recombination! Once they have a plant they like with all their gene-splicing tech, there would be as many ways of propagating as with e.g. named apple varieties'.

My impression from other stories is that they are certainly preparing commercial release, they just stopped the experiment (somehow there is scientific involvement see https://pub.confit.atlas.jp/en/event/ihc2026/presentation/S1...). They had an earlier 'blue' rose var "Applause" - which in the photos does not come close to this strange one https://www.suntoryapplause.com It was apparently used only by commercial growers for superfancy florists.

Blue or blue-tending flowers photograph really badly, on Kodachrome as on the internet, so nothing is to be really credited til you see it in life. If you type 'heavenly blue morning glory' in the browser you will see faked images - the real thing is nevertheless perfectly astonishing.

In general a blue effect, like the Heavenly Blue or the astounding mecanopsis, Himalayan poppy - once seen, never forgotten, in USA grown in Pacific NW only - involves more than just pigment but other ancillary curiosa like ferric ions trapping unfriendly wavelengths. The gene splicing was from several 'blue' flowers, but in some cases, if I follow, they were targeting these ancillaries, not the pigment.

Could also be at least in part an epigenetic effect where the gene remains but is deactivated or strongly down regulated.

This is why hybrids need to be re-bred with themselves many many generations in order to stabilize the phenotype. The genetic info may still be there but not expressing itself

Research provided by Project Blue Book.

Amazing! My first thoughts exactly!

Tangential, but I wonder why the trend of holding a lav out in front of the speaker became a thing. It seems like a weird youtuber gimmick.