Articles
Low temperature diminishes the photoperiodic flowering response of three petunia cultivars
Article number
1104_28
Pages
185 – 190
Language
English
Abstract
Many common petunia (Petunia ×hybrida) cultivars have a quantitative long-day response, so when the natural day length is short, commercial growers often deliver low-intensity lighting to accelerate flowering.
We grew three petunia cultivars in controlled-environment greenhouses at 16 or 21°C under a short day (SD, 10 h∙d-1) or long day (LD, 16 h∙d-1), each with the same photosynthetic daily light integral, to determine whether temperature influenced the photoperiodic flowering response.
Flowering was incomplete when ‘Wave Purple Classic’ (‘WPC’) was grown under SDs whereas essentially all ‘Easy Wave Neon Rose’ (‘EWNR’) and ‘Wave Purple Improved’ (‘WPI’) plants flowered in all treatments.
Petunia ‘EWNR’ and ‘WPI’ flowered 31 or 59 d earlier, respectively, when grown at 21°C with LDs compared to 16°C with SDs.
Temperature had a greater effect on flowering time under LDs than SDs, and the LD promotion of flowering was less at 16°C than at 21°C. For example, growing plants at 16 versus 21°C delayed flowering by 18% under SDs and 95% under LDs in ‘EWNR’, and in ‘WPI’, flowering was delayed by 15 or 110% under SDs or LDs, respectively.
These results indicate that the LD promotion of flowering is diminished when petunia is grown at a low temperature, at least for the three cultivars studied.
We grew three petunia cultivars in controlled-environment greenhouses at 16 or 21°C under a short day (SD, 10 h∙d-1) or long day (LD, 16 h∙d-1), each with the same photosynthetic daily light integral, to determine whether temperature influenced the photoperiodic flowering response.
Flowering was incomplete when ‘Wave Purple Classic’ (‘WPC’) was grown under SDs whereas essentially all ‘Easy Wave Neon Rose’ (‘EWNR’) and ‘Wave Purple Improved’ (‘WPI’) plants flowered in all treatments.
Petunia ‘EWNR’ and ‘WPI’ flowered 31 or 59 d earlier, respectively, when grown at 21°C with LDs compared to 16°C with SDs.
Temperature had a greater effect on flowering time under LDs than SDs, and the LD promotion of flowering was less at 16°C than at 21°C. For example, growing plants at 16 versus 21°C delayed flowering by 18% under SDs and 95% under LDs in ‘EWNR’, and in ‘WPI’, flowering was delayed by 15 or 110% under SDs or LDs, respectively.
These results indicate that the LD promotion of flowering is diminished when petunia is grown at a low temperature, at least for the three cultivars studied.
Authors
T. Vaid, E.S. Runkle
Keywords
bedding plants, daylength, lighting, long days
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