Effect of Various Forms of Urea and GA3 on Floral Characters of Chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat)
Abstract
The experiment on effect of various forms of urea and GA3 on floral characters of chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat.) was carried out at Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu. Forty five days old rooted cutting of the variety “White” grown on a media containing a mixture of one part of sand, one part of red earth and one part of farm yard manure were subjected to four forms of urea (liquid feeding, tarcoated urea, neemcake coated urea and prilled urea) and four levels of GA3 (water spray, 50 ppm, 75 ppm and 100 ppm). The highest number of flowers per plant (102), maximum spray length (18.40 cm) and flower diameter (5.27 cm) was obtained from the plants supplied with neemcake coated urea and sprayed with 100 ppm of GA3 at 60,90 and 120 days after planting.
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Introduction
Chrysanthemum is an important commercial cutflower grown all over India. Uniformity of flower production with elegant range of colour, shades, shapes and ease of cultivation has made it very popular among flower growers. Recently, container system of growing cut chrysanthemum is becoming popular because of its advantages over ground cultivation. In container production, due to its limited volume of media and less buffering capacity needs new management techniques for increasing the efficiency of system. Frequent watering necessitated by limited volume of media reduces the fertilizer use efficiency under container production system. Among the various nutrients, the loss of N has been reported by several workers (Muneshwar singh and Singh, 1986; Rayar, 1990). Recently, fertigation and use of slow release fertilizers are recommended to increase the nutrient use efficiency in container production system. Better growth and quality of cut chrysanthemum when grown with slow releasing fertilizers like osmocote has been reported by Prince et al. (1990). However, unavailability and high cost of various slow releasing fertilizers recommended in high – tech growing of chrysanthemum in our country emphasizes the need to look out for alternative materials to increase the availability of nutrients throughout the growing period. Various problems do limit the development of such fertilizer. Coating of urea is one such technology which has been tried in many field crops in order to improve use efficiency and maximize production. The possibility of using locally available and less costly than imported, as well as with no pollution limitation has been considered as an important aspect. In order to improve the production and quality, the plants were also treated with various concentrations of gibberellic acid. Hence, the present investigation was carried out with a view to find out the efficient form of urea and concentration of GA3 on floral characters of Chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat).
Conclusion
The results indicated that application of neemcake coated urea had improved the nitrogen use efficiency and yield potential in container production of chrysanthemum. However, the efficiency depends on the amount and frequency of application. Increased rate of urea and frequency through neemcake coated formulation in addition to developing slow release fertilizer containing all the three major nutrients is recommended for future research before arriving at economic conclusions.