Optimizing Growth and Morphological attributes of Henckelia Royal Queen through Pinching and Paclobutrazol application

Abstract

The developing floriculture industry seeks domestic pot ornamental plants as it is not further being luxury in effort. Several endemic flowering plants have the potential to introduce as pot ornamental. But creeping growth attributes of this endemic plants should be tested with growth retardants and physical manipulations before introduce those plants into the floriculture market. A shade house factorial experiment was arranged in eight treatment combinations of pinching/non-pinching and various Paclobutrazol concentrations (0 ppm, 15 ppm, 30 ppm and 60 ppm) with eight replicates for each treatment. Paclobutrazol was applied in twice, two weeks intervals while, soil drenching and pinching was done. Results of the experiment disclosed that the plants showed better performances in growth retardation and other characters measured with the pinching and Paclobutrazol concentrations increasing, but degree of leaf deformation was increased when increase the concentration of Paclobutrazol. It was observed that 15 ppm Paclobutrazol applied plants showed balanced growth retardation and acceptable plant characters. Application of Paclobutrazol in concentration of 15 ppm along with pinching caused considerable suppression of height that makes increased floricultural value for the Henckelia plants.