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| Primulina 'First Time' created by Monte Walter/Vincent Woo |
Story # 146,
In commercial horticulture, one essential
production technique that must be understood is: What is the flowering response?
What makes a particular plant
flower? Day-length (or actually night
length) was proven to be the trigger for Chrysanthemums and Poinsettias. Once the critical day-length is determined,
then vegetative growth or flowering can be turned on or off depending on your
goal.
Some plants are day-neutral which
means that other factors like temperature or drought or maturity (age) lead to
flowering.
Primulinas are day-neutral.
So far the only apparent flowering response
is age. When the plant is vegetatively
propagated from a leaf, the resulting plantlets flower when old enough. This is inexact and undependable. Uncertain flowering is the main reason
Primulinas are not a commercial flowering plant.
We need to collect all the anecdotal
evidence to determine what will cause flowering in the shortest possible time. We can manipulate the environment if we know
what triggers the fastest flowering.
In the 70’s and 80’s, the first practical
seed Geranium was developed. Through a
massive breeding and selection process, seed lines were selected for
earliness. But why?
Growing Geraniums from seed would
eliminate the acres of costly stock plants and drive down production costs. This worked, but the equation changed when
off-shore stock maintenance evolved and FedEx could bring you inexpensive
cuttings overnight. High quality cutting
Geraniums returned and we have superior flowering types again.
What’s this have to do with Asian
Violets?
There are hundreds of Primulina species
known and more are being found in South China and North Vietnam. Some of these species may flower very quickly
from seed. If they can be identified and
used in the gene pool, rapid flowering will be possible.
Hybrid selection will purify the flowering
response and dependable flowering Asian Violets will be common.
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