ISHS Acta Horticulturae 576: International Conference on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants. Possibilities and Limitations of Medicinal and Aromatic Plant Production in the 21st Century
INVESTIGATIONS OF FLOWERING DYNAMICS OF THE BASIL (OCIMUM BASILICUM L.) AND ITS PRODUCTION CONSEQUENCES |
| Authors: | K. Szabó, J. Bernáth |
| Keywords: | flowering index, inflorescence, phenological phase, harvesting time, essential oil, GAP |
| Abstract:
The flowering dynamics of Ocimum basilicum L. was studied with the aim to create an exact and practically applicable method for definition of its phases. Model experiments were done in 1997, on a common population maintained at the University and in 1998, the research work was extended over 11 populations of basil. According to our observation, the development of individual flowers of the basil can be characterised by 8 distinguishable phases, which must be considered for description of the actual phenological stage of a spike. An accurate model was created for the unambiguous description of flowering process of different flowers within the spike and for the individual plant as a whole. The new flowering index formula is calculated from the number of flowers weighted by their phenological phases. The time dependence of flowering is presented by functions fitted to values of the flowering index. The results reflected different patterns of the main inflorescence, the inflorescence formed on the side shoots in the first or in the second half of the flowering period. However, for description of the flowering process of the whole plant, a sigmoid function proved to be the appropriate model. The accumulation process of the essential oil could be characterised by the flowering index values (r=0.964). Based on the investigation of 11 genotypes it was proved, that the optimal harvesting time cannot be generalised to the species, as it is done by the literature. Genotype dependence was justified. | |
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