Abstract
Gladiolus is an ornamental species produced for cut flowers and propagated by corms. The early flowering and increase in the number of flower buds, besides the production of commercial corms are constant challenges to be addressed in the crop improvement. Commercial production of ornamentals is technologically accelerated by means of growth regulators. Among them, the auxins stand out for their key role in the adventitious rooting and cell elongation. Alternatively, the humic substances present in the organic matter also have biostimulating effect, which is very similar to the auxinic effect. Therefore, this work aimed to study the growth and development of gladiolus in response to application of different concentrations of humic acids (HA) isolated from vermicompost. Corms were soaked for 24 hours in solutions containing 0, 10, 20, 30 and 40 mmol L-1 of C from HA. The corms were planted in 10-dm³ plastic bags filled with substrate and kept in a greenhouse. Growth of shoots and roots was evaluated. The results showed that the use of HA accelerates growth, and anticipates and increases flowering of Gladiolus.
Highlights
The world floriculture market is worth approximately US$ 8 billion per year
Despite its potential economic importance, it is still little explored in Brazil, which accounts for only 2.5% of that amount, about US$ 20 million
The results showed that, in general, the Gladiolus plants derived from corms treated with humic acids showed increases, in absolute terms, in shoot growth and corm production compared with the control plants (Tables 1 and 2)
Summary
The world floriculture market is worth approximately US$ 8 billion per year. The Brazilian floriculture industry occupies an area of approximately 4,500 hectares (ha), including 700 ha under protected cultivation. Gladiolus (Gladiolus L.), known as Sword lily, is a bulbous plant in the iris family (Iridaceae) originated from Africa. In Brazil, it has a high commercial demand especially for decorative arrangements. The name of the genus has origin from Latin, the diminutive of gladius, a sword (Lorenzi & Souza, 2008; Barbosa, 2011). The commercial product is the inflorescence, which is a spike with 0.6 to 1.2 m in length, with 8 to 16 flowers placed in between a bract and a bracteole (Barbosa, 2011)
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