A bigger more hearty catnip plant – whose enriched oil not only promises to drive cats crazy with pleasure but also may be a safer, more effective mosquito repellent – has been developed for specialized commercial farmers by Rutgers University… A super catnip has been developed by Rutgers that will allow commercial farmers to grow bigger yields at more affordable prices… The Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (NJAES), which has spent more than a decade developing the new breed, CR9, for the insect repellant and pet toy industries recently licensed the product to Ball Horticulture, an Illinois company that will produce the seeds for commercial farmers… “In the past catnip wasn’t grown much because the plant itself was never developed to generate commercially acceptable yields from its leaves and flowers which produce its aromatic volatiles oils, and thus, wasn’t profitable” said James Simon, professor in the Department of Plant Biology and Pathology at the Rutgers School of Environment and Biological Sciences who led the plant breeding in the development of the new catnip variety.
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