Monday, March 26, 2012

Increasing Gerbera flower size, quality and quantity


Hey Everyone,  Its been long since the last post and there are a couple of issues  that i wanted to write about and this post is about one aspect that really manages the flower size quality and the quantity.

Like i mentioned earlier this one variety ..dark pink arrived late in the farm and was not along with the regular schedule of all other saplings. But becoz of  the wedding season there was a huge demand for the flowers and i started to harvest these flowers just after like 8-9 weeks after plantation and that has really effected the plants ..   No one was bothered about the flower size and quality as it was wedding season and each flower fetched as much as  8rs  and so until the season was over i have harvested flowers from these .. but i slowly started seeing the stress on the plants and there has been decrease in the flower quality in the strength wise and also with the length .. i was just not happy and another important thing  is that  the plants were not able to hold to soil while trying to pluck the flower and resulting in  plant uprooting or  loosening .. So, i planned to hold the flower development for another 5-6 weeks and   stress on the growth of the plant.  Removed all the buds  and cleaned up all  the dried up leaves and  raked up soil once and adjusted the plants and waited for them to grow ...  6 weeks  and   woooooww ... i just was soo happy to see the  happy plants  all  ready and  tight  to give a depression to other plants .. look at the last pic ..  see the flower bloom  it was  gushing like river !!     

End of the day lessons learnt --  Do not start  harvesting until the plant  is  firm and has atleast 16 leaves.
Dark Pink Gerbera-- One of the fav of the all buyers now !!

weak plants and dying leaves ... 5 weeks earlier .. with  weaker buds and smaller flower diametre

All the buds removed and drenched with growth stimulant

After  5 weeks of dormant growing ..  increased  Gerbera flower size , stem length and quantity