The Effect of the Pre-transplant Pot Media Quality on Pansy Garden Performance

Abstract

Although there is a great amount of information about the production of bedding plants, little is documented on their post-production performance. In order to determine how the crop management affects the post-production performance, two growing media with significant differences in both physical and chemical properties during the pot culture were tested. The aim of this work was to understand how the substrate quality change the physiological mechanism related to biomass accumulation both during the pot culture and during the post-production handling. The hypothesis tested was that the growing medium at the pre-transplant stage, as an abiotic stress source, affect the performance during the post-production cropping as well. These novelty data show that plant quality and garden performance are dependent on the growing media quality during the pot culture as well as the plant genotype. The physiological changes involved included leaf area accumulation and biomass accumulation as a result of both carbohydrate production and partition. The positive relationships between the rate of leaf area expansion (RLAE), the rate of leaves appearance (RLA), the relative growth rate (RGR), the net assimilation rate (NAR) and root dry weight, which would involve the synthesis of cytokinins are discussed.