Tuberose Production in Soil and Soilless Substrates

Abstract

Flowers are an integral part of our life due to their diversity in form, color and fragrance. Tuberose is a marketable ornamental species and considers as one of the most important ornamental flowers grown mainly due the long flowering period, which is an important aspect whether grown as cut flowers or landscaping. In this context, an experiment has been conducted under net greenhouse at the
experimental site of Central Laboratory for Agricultural Climate (CLAC), Agricultural Research Center, Ministry of Agriculture and Land reclamation, Egypt during seasons of 2021 and 2022. The aim of the experiment was to study the effect of using gibberellic acid and potassium as spray materials on the growth and flower quality of tuberose grown in both soil and soilless media. Two main factors
were under investigation in this experiment and their description were as follow; substrate types (soil cultivation “control”, 50 % perlite: 50 % peat moss “PP”, 90 % sand: 10 % compost “SC” and 100 % coco peat “CP”). The other factor was spray materials (water “control”, 100ppm of gibberellic acid “GA”, 100ppm of potassium “K” and 50ppm of gibberellic acid + 50ppm of potassium “GA+K”).
Results indicated that soilless substrates regardless the substrate type recorded better results than soil production of tuberose regarding the vegetative growth, number of florets per spike, flower quality measurements and chemical measurements. Furthermore, results illustrated that coco peat was the best substrate for producing tuberose with high yield and quality, also using GA+K as a spray materials during growth of tuberose affected positively on the growth and quality on the produced tuberose
flowers.