New Zealand Journal of Crop and Horticultural Science abstracts
Maturity and type of cutting influences flower yield, flowering time, and quality in Limonium ‘Chorus Magenta’
K. A. Funnell
Institute of Natural Resources
Massey University
Private Bag 11 222
Palmerston North, New Zealand
email: k.funnell@massey.ac.nz
M. Bendall
New Zealand Institute for Crop & Food
Research Limited
Private Bag 11 600
Palmerston North, New Zealand
W. F. Fountain
1269 Wilzin Drive
Greenville
MS 38701, United States
E. R. Morgan
New Zealand Institute for Crop & Food
Research Limited
Private Bag 11 600
Palmerston North, New Zealand
email: morgane@crop.cri.nz
Abstract The influence of physiological maturity (3-, 6-, 9-, or 12-leaf axils) and type of cutting (whole cutting, top-half, or bottom-half) on the yield, time to flower, and flower and stem characteristics of Limonium ‘Chorus Magenta’ were assessed. Cuttings struck at an increased maturity (9- and 12-leaf axils) with apical meristems retained (whole and top-half types) had the potential to produce at least a 20% higher flower-stem yield in the first 12 months of production, flowered earliest (142 days), and had reduced standard deviations in flowering time (less than 20 days compared with up to 106 days). However, these cuttings had shorter stems (by 19 cm) than bottom-half cuttings. Panicle diameter increased up to 5 cm with increased maturity for both whole and bottom-half cuttings. For top-half and whole cuttings there was no relationship between the number of new leaves and flowering time. However, as the number of new leaves on bottom-half cuttings increased, the time to flowering increased exponentially. Bottom-half cuttings typically took longer to flower (up to 214 days) and produced a larger number of new leaves (up to 18) than other cutting types. Treatment differences in the total number of leaves on a flowering shoot arising from bottom-half cuttings led us to hypothesise that the delay in time to flower resulted from the wide variation in the number of days the apex of axillary buds remained in the vegetative state, the comparative immaturity of axillary buds, and/or a delay in the start of growth once correlative inhibition from the apex was removed.
Keywords Limonium perigrinum; Limonium purpuratum; physiological maturity; panicle diameter; propagation; stem length; variance; leaf number
H02097 Received 11 December 2002; accepted 13 February 2003; published 12 June 2003
New Zealand Journal of Crop and Horticultural Science, 2003, Vol. 31: 139-146
0014-0671/03/3102-0139 $7.00 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2003
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