HOW TO GROW CHRYSANTHEMUM FOR FUN AND PROFIT
Chrysanthemum is one of the most popular cut flower by most florist and flower arrangers. They are identified through its flower classifications…
1) Single. This includes varieties which approximately has five rows or ray florets and a visible central disk still prominent.
2) Semi-double. This has two or several rows petals but with the central disk still prominent.
3) Double. This includes such categories as…
· Incurves. Its heads are nearly globular in outline with no visible disk florets. The ray florets are curved upward toward the center of the flower. This is the most popular of the market-type large flower because of ease of handling since it’s not easily bruised.
· Reflex. Its head is similar to the incurves in outline but the ray florets are curved downward toward the base of the flower.
· Pompon. It has either globular or flat head but they ray florets are short and firm.
· Decorative. It has he4ad with many flat ray florets and its outline is flat rather than globular.
· Novelty type. Flowers with tubular ray florets. Novelty has four types…
- Spider. Also called “Fuji Chrysanthemum”, it has hidden disk florets with long arching ray florets hooked upward at the tip.
- Quill. Similar to spider type but the tip of the ray florets are not
hooked.
- Spoon. The end of its tubular ray florets is spatulate and,
unlike the spider and quill types, its central disk may be distinct.
- Anemone. This type has blooms that are either single or double with
a pincushion-like center as the most prominent part. The ray florets
play only a minor role.
Environmental requirements to grow Chrysanthemum
Soil. Chrysanthemum grows best in a well-drained soil with high moisture holding capacity. It should have a pH between 5.8 to 6.8, but the ideal one should be 6.0 to 6.5. The percent organic matter content must be at least 4% or higher.
Climate. Chrysanthemum being an open plant grows well in areas with plenty of sunshine but should be cool during the night. They grow well and bear productive flowers in a cool place.
Too much rainfall is not favorable for chrysanthemum because the attack of some pests and diseases is prevalent during this period.
But this can be remedied by providing protective structures to the growing plants.
If you have the financial capability, constructing a greenhouse is the ideal solution to protect your flowers from serious damage.
Water. Adequate water supply is vital during the growing period of this plant. Don’t ever attempt to plant your flower plant if you think there is no available source of water.
You’ll be frustrated if you’ll limit the supply of water to your chrysanthemum, because they love water during their growing period.
Light. Although chrysanthemum thrives best to sunlight, they are also tolerable in an artificial light bulbs. This is true when you grow them in greenhouse where sunlight is limited.
You can supply artificial light during the months where sunlight is critical. Under Philippines condition, it’s from July to March where light is critical.
The best site location for Chrysanthemum
You have to consider a good location especially if you’re for commercial production.
The following 7 considerations should be your best choice for site location…
1) Accessibility to good road. Good road is an important area of concern if you’re into commercial production. Naturally, customers wants a good road network to have an easy access to your garden.
2) Relatively flat or slightly rolling land with adequate windbreak. Your area should be a little bit flat but slightly rolling and of course with a reasonable windbreak to protect the plants from strong wind during storm or typhoon.
3) Chemical-free location. Your site should be far from possible sources of harmful chemicals like factories, refineries, and other hazardous objects.
4) Source of organic manures. As much as possible locate your garden near the source of organic materials, such as poultry farms, piggery, barns, etc.
5) Source of electric power. As mentioned earlier, chrysanthemum is a sun-loving plant. In the absence of sunlight, artificial light can be supplemented. It’s therefore important to locate your garden near the source of electric power for emergency purposes.
6) Proximity to market. Near to the market place is an advantage in your part because you’ll minimize handling cost in transporting your flowers.
7) In demand in the market. Survey the market and observe what cut flowers are in demand. Knowing the demand in the market, will give you an idea and in turn minimize your losses in the production cost because you know before hand which flowers will give you the best return on your investment.
Your site initial preparation
Before you start your actual cut flower operations, you should provide the following infrastructures…
1) Rooting plots or beds. You should construct your rooting beds about 50 square meters for every hectare of effective land area to be planted.
2) Nursery. Your nursery is the place where you’ll stock your plants prior to market. It’s also the place where you’ll groom and do some finishing touches before delivering them to the market or garden shows.
3) Electrical and misting fixtures. Electrical fixtures are connected to the misting fixtures for automatic water mist supply to the plants. Irrigation system requires for the supply of water to the stock nursery. This may includes the installation of water tanks, light timer and other facilities needed.
4) Packing area. The packing area is your place for the preparation of the plants for marketing. This is also your rest area for farm workers and utilities.
5) Storage room. Your storage room serves as the place for storing your farm implements, chemicals, and other farm supplies.
6) Farm block. If you’ve enough space in your garden, you should have your area blocked into quarters. One quarter of the area is always in bloom and the rest are in various stages of operation, one quarter being transplanted or at seedling stage and the other quarter near flowering.
This way you’ve a continuous supply of flower the whole year round.
How to prepare the land
After the major farm operations was performed, such as clearing, leveling, terracing, plowing and harrowing, the construction of raised beds follows.
You should construct raised beds with a size of .5 to 1 meter wide with a lengths from 25 to 50 meters.
After bedding, you’ve to spread organic manures like chicken ,hog, horse, or bat manure, whatever is available in your country. These manures should be spread over the bed at a depth of about 2 – 4” then incorporate into the soil 1 – 1.5 months before transplanting. This will depend on how fresh your manures will be.
If you can get an aged manures, it’s much better because the decomposition process is much faster, and can be utilized by the plants earlier.
Together with the manures, you’ve to apply basal phosphate fertilizer which usually consists of a single super phosphate (20 P2O5) at the rate of 0.1 -0.2 kg/sq. m. and liming material to adjust the soil pH and to ensure that calcium level in the soil is adequate.
How to propagate chrysanthemum
Most often chrysanthemum is propagated by stem tip cutting if you’re into commercial production. For home gardens or small cut flower ventures, you can use suckers, stem cuttings and seeds.
Usually, you can obtain your cuttings from your stock/mother plant which you should perpetually keep in vegetative state by providing supplementary lighting.
No more than 5 – 6 flushes of stem tip cuttings should be obtained after which the stock plants are replanted with a new one.
Here’s what you’ll do…
1) Construct a rooting beds using sand or volcanic cinder as support rooting medium, about 1 foot thickness.
2) Cut the stem tip at least 2 – 3” long or irrespective of length, there must by at least 2 to 3 fully developed leaves.
3) Soak cuttings in a root hormone to hasten root development.
4) Set cuttings in misted rooting beds distanced at 1 inch apart.
5) Rooting beds should be misted to ensure high growth survival of the cuttings.
6) Cuttings treated with rooting hormone are ready for transplanting in about 10 – 14 days.
7) You can plant the rooted cuttings when the roots reached a length of .5 – 1”.
8) If the cuttings are ready for planting but the area is not yet prepared, you can dry-packed and store them in cold-storage at 0°C for 3 weeks, longer if unrooted.
How to transplant chrysanthemum
In your prepared raised beds, transplant the rooted cuttings at a density of 16 – 24 plants per square meter depending on the variety and the quality of the flowers you desired.
If you’re aiming for better quality flower and more vigorous varieties, you can set them at a lower plant densities.
Once cuttings have produced roots, the become responsive to photoperiod, so your rooting beds should be lighted.
Light should also be installed in the flower production area even before transplanting.
During the first 3 – 5 days from transplanting, you should maintain mist to avoid wilting. Or you can use an overhead sprinkler irrigation. But you’ve to discontinue this as soon as the plants are already established to minimize leaf diseases.
Maintain your plants’ sanitation by removing some weeds up to flowering stage.
Remember! Weeds are the number one competitors for plant nutrients.
Always keep the soil moist at all times but not too much water accumulation.
How to initiate fertilize application
Although your plots have been applied basally with phosphate fertilizer, you should apply supplementary fertilizer after the 4th week from transplanting.
Dissolve the fertilizer in water at the rate of ½ lb per one gallon of water.
On a square meter area, the transplants requires at least .04 - .05 kg/sq. meter of nitrogen and potassium. This amount may be applied in three equal installments or weekly as follows…
1) Prior to pinching (about 2 weeks after transplanting).
2) Prior to start of short day or lights off.
3) Shortly after appearance of petal color.
Weekly application of fertilizer should start about a week from transplanting.
How to pinch, prune, and disbud
Pinching is the removal of the terminal shoot to force the break out of the auxiliary buds.
Consequently, several lateral stems are produced per plant. To have a quality flowers, it’s not advisable to allow these lateral stems to grow.
The ideal number should be 3 – 4 lateral stems per plant. In this numbers, you’ll be having some quality flowers – a case where you’ll flowers commands good price.
In reducing the number of stems, you should select those vigorous laterals that are distanced from each other preferably those at a more basal location.
By pruning the unnecessary laterals, you’re minimizing over-crowding and competition among laterals which will ultimately affect the quality of the flowers.
The more the number of laterals, the greater the competition for the food manufactured by the leaves.
You should pinch the plants about two weeks from transplanting. You should pinch about .5 – 1 inch the terminal either by a pruning shear or simply by pinching between your finger nails.
The use of the finger nails is preferred to minimize the transfer of diseases through the infected cutting instrument.
However, you should wash your hands properly with ethyl alcohol or, if available with fresh milk before doing the operation to make sure your hands are clean.
Your disbudding operations should start as soon as the terminal flower buds appear and have reached a bigger size and is easy to handle.
Usually, there are about 4 – 5 number of buds that appears at the terminal. The standard recommendation is, only one bud is allowed to mature. The rest should be removed by disbudding.
The ideal size of the buds to be removed should be about the size of a mongo seed. If disbudding is made earlier than the prescribed time, the remaining bud might be injured, and will affect the flower quality.
On the other hand, if you’ll disbud when the buds too big, the possibility of big scar left is too big and unsightly thus affecting flower quality.
Large wounds scars also take longer to heal and they may also serve as entry point for disease microorganisms.
For spray mums, disbudding is usually not necessary. However, the removal of the central terminal crown bud usually ensures a more uniform development of the remaining lower buds.
Take note, that long straight stems are among the desirable features of a quality flower of chrysanthemum.
Therefore, you should provide support for the growing plant. You can use any support, say a nylon cords or anything available.
The first layer should be placed when the plants are about 1 foot high and the next layer are about 2 feet high or the first layer may be raised to about 1.5 feet, when the plants are about 2 feet high.
How to control pests and diseases
The most common insect pests of chrysanthemum are…
1) nematodes
2) leaf roller
3) mites
4) thrips
5) aphids.
They’re not serious types of pests. In fact, they can be controlled easily by Companion cropping with other aromatic herbs and other biological control methods. If the infestation is beyond control, you can use chemical insecticides as the last recourse, but you’ve to follow the manufacturer’s recommendation to totally eradicate them.
But, my position is still on NATURAL CONTROL METHODS. If you can avoid it, don’t ever use any chemical to control pests and diseases.
On the other hand, some of the common diseases of chrysanthemum are the following…
1) Cercospora leaf spot
2) Fusarium stem rot
3) Powdery mildew
4) An unidentified bacteria
These diseases can be easily controlled by the use of the following fungicides, following the recommendation from the manufacturers…
1) Difolatan
2) Daconil
3) Dithane
4) M45
5) Maneb
6) Delsene MX
As I have said before, and this will be my position, by all means…
IF YOU CAN AVOID IT, DON’T EVER USE ANY CHEMICAL TO CONTROL PESTS AND DISEASES.
There are so many natural control methods you can apply. Just look around, you can find them.
How to harvest a quality flowers
Chrysanthemum flowers are the ones that are sold to the market. It’s therefore vital that proper harvesting should be done with care to get an attractive and good looking flower appearance.
Here are some recommendations that you should follow…
1) The flowers should be nearly fully opened when harvested.
2) The spray type, should be cut when the central flower is open and the surrounding flowers are well developed.
3) For varieties that shed pollen badly, should be cut before they become unsightly.
4) The standards should be cut before the center florets are fully developed.
5) The stems should be reasonably soft where the cut is made since very hard woody tissues may not absorb water. However, the entry of water into the hard woody stem can be facilitated by slightly crushing the tip end.
6) The lower 1/3 portion of the foliage on the stem should be stripped off to prevent the leaves from fouling the water or holding the solution.
7) For standards that are to be opened artificially, the flowers should be cut in the bud stage (about the size of a quarter coin).
How to do post-harvest handling of chrysanthemum flowers
In order to extend the life span of your flowers, the following steps should be strictly followed…
1) Shortly after harvest, they should be held in water at 5°C.
2) Post harvest life may be extended by dry storage at 0 - 1°C for 3 weeks.
3) When the flowers are to be stored, they should, however , be conditioned by recutting the stem end, then soak their stems in warm water (about 37 - 42°C) to facilitate rapid dehydration.
4) An opening solution which may be used consists of 5 – 10% sucrose + 200 ppm 8-hydroxyquinoline citrate or sulfate (200 ppm Physan 20 or Likosan which may be a substitute for 8-hydroxyquinoline). The flowers opened in 7 – 9 days and the maximum flower diameter for Albatros at full opening is 12.5 cm.
Source: Rimando, Tito J. 1989. A courseware of the Technology Correspondence Program, Technology And Livelihood Resource Center, Module III, UPLB, Laguna, Phil.
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Cris Ramasasa, Freelance writer, writes about home gardening and Internet marketing tips. You can get a copy of his latest ebook “Discover How to get started in Flower Gardening” and “Vegetable Gardening Made Easy”, also get lots of tips, Free articles, and bonuses at: www.crisramasasa.com
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