Effect of bulbs size and gibberellic acid (GA₃) on growth and flowering of Eucomis

Eucomis spp., or pineapple flower, is a beautiful flower bulbous plant.
The inflorescences are about 30-40 cm long and have many small florets.
It can be used as a cut flowering, potted plant, and medicinally in South Africa.
However, the research on production factors affecting the growth and flowering of Eucomis was limited.
Therefore, this experiment focused on studying the effect of bulb size and GA₃ application on Eucomis growth and flowering.
Bulbs with different sizes, i.e., small size (17.0 cm circumferences and 75.0 g of bulb fresh weight) and large size (22.0 cm circumferences and 130.0 g of bulb fresh weight), were selected and stored in a cold room at 5°C for 2 months.
Then, bulbs were soaked with 4 different levels of GA₃, i.e., 0, 50, 100, and 200 mg L^‑1, for 30 min before planting using soil:sand:rice husk:coconut dust with a ratio of 1:1:1:1 as growing media.
The results showed that in the 1 month after planting, the highest bud sprouting percentage was found when using a large bulb size and soaked with 50 mg L^‑1 GA₃ treatment.
At 6 months after planting, the large bulb size gave higher results on plant height than the small bulb size (67.1 and 64.6 cm, respectively). The small bulb size soaked with GA₃ 50 mg L^‑1 gave the lowest plant height and stalk length (59.8 and 20.5 cm, respectively). In addition, the highest flowering percentage was observed when plants were planted with large bulb sizes soaked with GA₃ at 100 mg L^‑1 treatment.

IV Asian Horticultural Congress – AHC2023

K. Panjama, S. Ruamrungsri, C. Inkham

Eucomis, bulb size, GA₃, growth, flowering, production

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2024.1404.155