KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FACULTY OF AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENT OF HORTICULTURE

HORT 456 (FLORICULTURE)

FLORAL INDUCTION, INITIATION AND MANIPULATION IN Kalanchoe blossfeldiana (Flaming katy)

NAME: MENSAH KING FELIX INDEX NUMBER: 3185509

FLORAL INDUCTION, INITIATION AND MANUPULATION IN Kalanchoe blossfeldiana (Flaming katy)

K. blossfeldiana is a glabrous, succulent herb to sub-shrub belonging to the Crassulaceae family. It is upright in growth to about 18 inches tall with opposite leaves arranged in four ranks. The flower consists of four petals and can be red, orange, yellow and white and is a short day plant. Moreover, it grows well indoors too and a good houseplant. High light intensities play an important part in floral initiation in the plant. As short day plants, kalanchoes will not initiate flowers when grown at temperatures 20 or 25C in continues darkness. If however, in darkness, they are subjected to a one second flash of high intensity incandescent light (in the presence of CO2) every 24 hours, they will initiate flowers. Kalanchoes exposed to lower light intensities just before the dark period will initiate fewer flowers than those exposed to higher intensities. With regard to light intensities, it can be stated that in Kalanchoes high light intensities promote floral initiation. In some cases, reduced flowering due to low light intensity exposures can be restored by increasing length of the dark period. As Kalanchoes are short day plants, thus require some amounts of dark periods longer than some critical length (about 12 hours; however longer is required in green houses). According to Schwabe, 1985, on a 24 hour cycle, the same number of flowers will be produced whether the plant is grown under a 20 minute day or an 11 hour day. Only two long nights are required for floral initiation; however, as the number of long nights increase, the number of flowers initiated increases exponentially until 14 long nights are imposed at which time the rate of increase in the number of flowers that are initiated declines. Meanwhile, other experiments conducted on the plant shows variations in the numbers of

days of long nights to induce flowering, example 40 days, 3 weeks and 7 weeks as well. For commercial production, a minimum of 4-6 weeks of long nights is required. Growers pull black cloth over the crop at 4:30 pm and remove it at 7:30 or 8:00 am. In the case of a plant with a 12 hour critical length , the photoperiod can be increased well beyond the 12 hour critical length and the plant will still flower as long as the night exceeds 12 hours, the proving that it is the night controlling the flower initiation but not so for Kalanchoe which has an upper limit of day length at which flower initiation will occur but the initiation will not occur if the light period exceeds 17 hours though the dark period far exceeds the critical length (Schwabe, 1985).