Effect of Benzyl Adenine and Zinc Sulfate on The Growth, Flowering and Vase Life of Zinnia Plant (Zinnia elegans)

• Niroosh Sulaiman Hasan1, Ali Mohammed Jawad2 Layla Shaaban Mohammed1 and Ban Jibrael Khoshaba1

  Author

This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of benzyl adenine and zinc sulfate on the growth, flowering, vase life of zinnia plant. The experiment was designed following a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with two factors and three replicates. The parameters of zinnia plant included growth morphology, physiological parameters, elemental composition and flowering and vase life. The growth morphology parameters studied included plant height, number of branches, number of leaves, number of internodes, shoot dry weight, and leaf area; physiological parameters included carbohydrate content, anthocyanin pigments, total chlorophyll content, and total carotene content; and elemental content parameters included nitrogen content, phosphorus content, potassium content, and zinc content also, the number of days from planting to bud emergence, the number of days from planting to anthesis, the number of flowers per plant, stem length, flower diameter, stem diameter, flower dry weight, vase life. BA at three concentrations (0, 50, and 100 mgl^-1), and ZnSO₄ at three levels (0, 0.50, and 0.75%) of Zinnia was studied alone and their combination. The interaction of 50 mg L⁻¹ BA with 0.50% Zn gave the earliest bud emergence.

        The combination of 50 mg L⁻¹ benzyl adenine with 0.75% Zn gave the earliest flowering. The combination of 100 mg L⁻¹ BA with 0.75% Zn gave the maximum number of flowers per plant (5.11), the maximum plant height (97.28 cm), the maximum shoot dry weight (15.26 g), the maximum number of branches (9.50), and the maximum leaf area (31.35 cm²). The combination of BA with zinc gave the maximum carbohydrate content (6.14 mg.g⁻¹), the maximum anthocyanin content (232.5 mg.100 g^-1), the maximum nitrogen uptake (4.35%), and the maximum zinc content (0.98%).

• pdf