Floriculture

1098 Words3 Pages

Potting soil mixes are the most important factors for quality production of flowers in floriculture. It becomes farmer’s first preference these days because flowering crops provide higher returns than traditional crops and its marketing offers both small and large scale growers a way to increase the level of sustainability on their farms. Globally, more than 140 countries are involved in cultivation of floriculture corps (Anonymous, 2006).

In the last few years farmers and nursery men are much concerned about the potting media as it play an important role in plant production. There is a continuing interest by using various agricultural by-products as an organic nutrient source for plants due to increasing awareness of environment-related issues, as well as the need to dispose off and use rising amounts of waste (Grigatti, 2008).

Organic materials from agriculture, forestry, green areas and livestock farming as well as residues from municipal and industrial waste are strongly recommended for use as renewable resources in pot production that palliate their harmful and negative impact on local and global environmental degradation. Peat is the most widely used substrate for potted plant production in the nurseries and accounts for a significant portion of the materials used to grow potted plants (Marfa et al., 2002; Ribeiro et al., 2007).Waste materials are the potential substitute for peat for sustainable horticulture production.

Dahlia is an important beautiful flower which belongs to family compositae and native from Mexico. It has attainted attention of many people all over the world by virtue of extra-ordinary quality of flowers and variation in colour and size. It has currently 35 renowned species and about 20,000 cultiv...

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...different compositions. If such media is evaluated for better growth, development and quality flower production than it can be commercialized in nursery business.

The first objective of this research was to evaluate different potting mixes for the growth and flowering of Dahlia x ‘Figaro Improved’. This project was subjected to explore different types of media like silt, coconut coir, dust, sludge, spent mushroom compost, rice hull alone and in different compositions for the production of dahlia. Along with studying growth and flowering of dahlia the chemical properties of media like availability of nutrients, electrical conductivity (EC) and pH were also evaluated. Over all objectives was to develop an efficient protocol for mass propagation of dahlia cultivars in the most suitable media to enhance quality production for nursery growers and the local markets.

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