Detailed Explanation of Key Techniques for Regulating the Flowering Period of Freesia

Freesia is a corm flower of the genus Freesia in the iris family (Iridaceae), and is one of the world's top ten cut flowers. The purpose of regulating the flowering period of freesia is to make better use of freesia flowering resources and meet production and consumer demands. Below is an introduction to techniques related to regulating the flowering period of freesia. These techniques are mainly aimed at the market demand for New Year's Day and Spring Festival and the climate characteristics of Fujian:

1. After dormant corms of freesia are stored at a high temperature of 28°C for 5 weeks, treatment with ethephon plus gibberellin can break dormancy within 2 weeks.

2. Low-temperature treatment at 8°C to 10°C for 40 days can advance the flowering period by 23 days, with a cut flower deformity rate of 13.2% and an early flowering rate of 60.6%.

3. Gibberellin combined with low-temperature treatment for 40 days can advance the flowering period by 80 days, with a cut flower deformity rate of 4.3% and an early flowering rate of 90.5%.

4. In the past, it was believed that freesia corms must be placed under moist conditions to respond to low temperature, so moist sawdust or perlite was generally used to fill between the bulbs for treatment. When we treated seed corms by this method, the result was that roots and sprouts grew after only 10 days of storage, and by 40 days of treatment they had become a mass of bean sprouts, which affected both cut flower quality and transport. Later, a dry storage method was adopted, that is, after treatment with the chemical solution, the corms were thoroughly blow-dried and stored directly, and success was achieved. At 40 days of storage, only some corms had sprouted, with sprouts only 1 to 3 cm long, which had little effect on cultivation and transport.

5. Cultivation temperature has a significant effect on the flowering period, flower stem length and deformity rate of treated bulbs. In the Fuzhou area, heat preservation in early December is most suitable. The above flowering period regulation techniques have been applied in production and have achieved obvious economic benefits.