CROWN BUDS IN GENTIANS: APPEARANCE, SHOOT EMERGENCE AND DEVELOPMENT

Increased productivity and scheduled flower timing of hybrid gentians will help growers further expand New Zealand’s exports of this new crop.
The current lack of information on the physiology of growth and development limits the development of management strategies to achieve such expansion.
Information on the ontogeny of buds may help in developing strategies to reduce the spread in timing of anthesis between flowering shoots, as well as increasing shoot production.
In order to identify and quantify bud types, and the time of their appearance, emergence and development to flowering, these parameters were tracked over time, in two growing environments.
Although different types of buds were identified, only preformed primary-crown buds produced flowering shoots.
Irrespective of the growing environ-ment 27% of these crown buds did not emerge.
Appearance of new crown buds for the following season’s flower production occurred over an eight month period, from summer through to early winter.
Cultivation in a protected environment resulted in longer shoot length and increased appearance of buds, but did not alter the timing of flowering within the current growth season.

XXVIII International Horticultural Congress on Science and Horticulture for People (IHC2010): International Symposium on Advances in Ornamentals, Landscape and Urban Horticulture

U.C. Samarakoon, K.A. Funnell, D.J. Woolley , G.K. Burge, E.R. Morgan

cyclic periodicity, flowering, temperature, herbaceous perennial, preformed buds

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2012.937.59