ISHS Acta Horticulturae 167: II Symposium on Growth Regulators in Floriculture
FLORICULTURE AND ORNAMENTAL PLANTS IN POLAND; RESEARCH AND PRODUCTION |
| Author: | R. M. Rudnicki |
| Abstract:
Ornamental horticulture, as a specialised branch of the horticultural industry, has been developed in Poland in the last 15 years. During the last 8–6 years it has been contributing strongly to an expanding market of horticulture products in Poland. This, what is called as "floricultural industry", has been created in our country to some extent accidentally. Such an expansion of flower and ornamental plants production had not been planned in our national economy. Most greenhouses in Poland had been initially designated for production of early vegetables, mostly tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce. But increasing costs of vegetable production in greenhouse due mostly to increasing prices for energy, and the better profitability of the floricultural industry, forced many producers toward flower production. This was accompanied by increasing demand of our market for flowers. If we compare the actual production of floricultural plants produced in greenhouses today to the amount of flowers produced in 1970 we could assume that the demand for flowers is already higher by over 400 % than it was 14 years ago. Most of our flowers (about 70 %) are produced in privately-owned small greenhouses with an average area between 500–2000 m2. The flower growers in such greenhouses are highly specialised in production although there are also greater areas occupied with floricultural production in state-owned large greenhouse complexes. These are between 6–30 hectares in size. The production of floricultural plants takes up between 20–40 % of the total area under glass in state-owned greenhouses. We have in Poland close to 1800 ha in heated greenhouses under glass and over 1900 ha in plastic greenhouses which are mostly non-heated or heated only in spring and early autumn (Table 1). Floricultural plants, including out flowers, pot plants, forced bulbous plants, and cuttings already are produced on an area close to 500 ha in heated glass-covered greenhouses and 120 ha in non-heated or partly heated plastic greenhouses. Our economic crisis in recent years has not greatly affected the floricultural industry. We have observed a slight decrease in flower production, by about 5 % in 1982, compared to 1981 but this decrease has been | |
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