Abstract:
In tulip, flowering can be greatly advanced by means of the bulb precooling technique, without impairing the quality characteristics of the flowers.
As it appears that low-temperature treatment induces quantitative and qualitative variations of endogenous plant hormones, like the gibberellins, the Institute of Agronomy and Herbaceous Crops, University of Bari, Italy, is now carrying out special researches in order to try and develop appropriate techniques to replace cold treatment, at least in part.
Treatments applied to the base of bulbs with 100 ppm gibberellin at 5°C for one week show that treating with gibberellin can replace pre-cooling only in part - thas confirming our previous findings obtained with other techniques.
It has been noted, however, that the combined effect of precooling plus gibberellin induces a greater advance of flowering than can be obtained by precooling alone.
Commercial characteristics are also improved.
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