RESPONSE OF STRAWBERRY OF GROWTH AND FLOWERING TO GIBBERELLIC ACID AND BENZYLADENIN

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at the lath house/ Department of Horticulture /College of Agriculture/ University of Baghdad at fall season 2008-2009 to investigate the effect of Gibberellic acid (GA3) and Benzyladenin (BA) application on some features of vegetative growth and flowering of strawberry (Fragaria ananassa Duch.) cv. Albion. Three concentrations of gibberellic acid; 0, 150, 300 mgl and three concentrations of benzyladenin 0, 900, 1800 mgl Randomizd Complete Block Design was adepted with three replicates and the comparison was done using L.S.D at 5% level of significance according to SAS programm. Results showed that Gibberellic acid at 300 mg/L increased number of runners , number leave up to 1.41 runner/plant and 14.41 leaves/plant as compared with o.13 runner and 12.37 leaves for control plants respectively . The highest level of benzyladeenine decreasing number of runner and number of leaves per plant, while, it gave the highest number of crowns up to 2.30 crown/plant as compared with control treatment which gave 2.09 crown/plant . The influence of growth regulators used in this study showed that GA3 at a rate of 300 mg/L induced a significant increases in the number of flowers and fruit per plants up to 18.91 flower/plant and 6.74 fruit/plant, respectively, as compared with 10.26 flower/plant and 6.44 fruit/plant, respectively, in the control treatment . Treating strawberry plants with BA increased the number of flower per plant while 1800 mg/L BA decreased the percentage of fruit setting to 39.74% and the number of fruit to 6.00 fruit/plant as compared with 54.38%, and 7.52 fruit/plant, respectively