2019 ASHS Annual Conference

A variety of flower colors add values on Schlumbergera truncata as ornamentals. The quality of S. truncata is mainly determined based on the number of phylloclades and flowering at the apical phylloclades. Cytokinins have been shown to promote branching and flowering in Cactaceae. This study was carried out to investigate the effects of growth regulators on the plant growth and flowering on four cultivars of S. truncata: ‘Orange Candle’, ‘Pink Dew’, ‘Red Roman’ and ‘Snow Queen’. Foliar treatments of benzylamino purine (BA) or both a mixture of BA and gibberellic acid (GA₃) were applied at 100∼200 mg·L^-1 when plants reached to three-phylloclade stage under long-day photoperiod. All plants treated with BA alone or the mixture of BA and GA₃ produced more phylloclades and branches than the control. BA application significantly produced more phylloclades and branches than BA in combination with GA₃. However, BA application shortened the length of phylloclades while adding GA₃ to BA delayed flowering. During the second trial, only BA was applied ranging from 0 to 100 mg·L^-1 to the plants at two phylloclade stage under long-photoperiod. The number of phylloclades was increased by 19.8∼33.0% without shortening the length of phylloclades when BA was applied at 50 or 75 mg·L^-1 concentration. The number of flower buds was increased by 100 to 190% under short day when BA at 100 mg·L^-1 was applied on ‘Orange Candle’ and ‘Red Roman’, while BA application at 200 mg·L^-1 increased only from 33.0 to 83.3% in ‘Pink Dew’ and ‘Snow Queen’. The number of flower buds increased with the higher concentration of BA, but the number of days to flower decreased and the length of flowers was shortened. In conclusion, the only BA application appears to be more effective in order to increase the number of phylloclades and flower buds in S. truncata.

This study was carried out with a support from the Korea Rural Development Administration (RDA) (Project No. PJ012635).