Cyclamen Leaf Unfolding Rate in Response to Temperature

Abstract

Nine-week-old plants of Cyclamen persicum `Miracle Salmon' were transplanted into 10-cm pots and placed in growth chambers at 8, 12, 16, 20, or 24 °C. The irradiance was 10 mol/day per m2 during a 16-h day length. After 8 weeks, the temperature was changed to 16 °C for all plants. Expanded leaves (1 cm or larger) were counted at weekly intervals for each plant. The rate of leaf unfolding increased with temperature to 20 °C. The fastest rate at 20 °C was 0.34 ± 0.05 leaf/day. Flower buds were visible 55 ± 7 days from start of temperature treatments (118 days from seeding) for the plants grown at 12, 16, or 20 °C. Flower buds appeared 60 ± 6.9 days from initiation of treatments for plants grown at 24 °C and 93 ± 8.9 days for cyclamens grown at 8 °C. Although there was no significant difference in rate of flower bud appearance for cyclamens grown at 12, 16, or 20 °C, the number of leaves, flowers, and flower buds varied significantly among all temperature treatments. Leaf number at flowering increased from 38 ± 4.7 for plants at 12 °C to 77 ± 8.3 at 24 °C. Flowers and flower buds increased from 18 ± 2.9 to 52 ± 11.0 as temperature increased from 12 to 24 °C. Plants grown at 8 °C had on average 6 ± 2 visible flower buds, but no open flowers at termination of the study (128 days from start of treatments).