Floriculture's 



Fountain 0/ Youth 



Dr. Peter S. Konjoian 



For centuries, man has been searching for the 

 elusive 'Fountain of Youth'. We have experi- 

 mented with all kinds of compounds, practices, 

 and beliefs that would successfully extend life by 

 maintaining one's juvenility. Have we succeeded? 

 Have we made progress? Each of us may answer 

 these questions differently; however, one thing can 

 be stated with certainty. Although we are living 

 longer, it does not appear that we are living longer 

 younger. I would like to discuss the topic of juvenil- 

 ity as it pertains to plants in this article. There are 

 times when understanding plant growth helps us to 

 explain aspects of animal physiology. Plants seem to 

 be simpler and easier to understand. 



For ten years now, I have been researching the ef- 

 fects of ethylene on floricultural crops. During my 

 days in graduate school at Ohio State University in 

 the late seventies, 1 learned a lot about how bad 

 this hormone can be to floricultural crops once 

 they've been harvested. A whole discipline evolved 

 called post-harvest physiology, with its practical 

 counterpart for growers being post-harvest care and 

 handling. 'We devoted so much time and energy to 

 this new discipline of horticulture that, in my opin- 

 ion, we created a monster. Don't get me wrong — I'm 

 not saying that our understanding of post-harvest 

 physiology is incorrect. But i am saying that we've 

 become so preoccupied with thinking of ethylene as 

 the bad boy on the block that we've almost missed 

 how very beneficial it can be during the production 

 (or pre-harvest) stage of crop development. 



As I became fascinated with this hormone's story, 

 my research gained momentum. With each experi- 

 ment, I am finding that this simplest of plant hor- 

 mones, the only one that occurs naturally as a gas, 

 was not put into plants to contribute only to aging 

 and senescence and death. Later in a plant's life, all 

 these things are true. But early in a crop cycle, while 

 the plant is growing and building itself, ethylene has 

 quite the opposite effects. It prevents flowering and 

 stimulates branching, resulting in more juvenile and 

 active plant growth. 



Because ethylene occurs naturally as an odorless, 

 tasteless gas, it is difficult to apply accurately 

 enough even in controlled settings to yield consis- 

 tent results. To date, ethylene gas is used routinely 

 in supermarket warehouses, in sealed rooms, to trig- 

 ger the ripening process in bananas and tomatoes. 

 However, in a commercial greenhouse, you can 

 quickly see that using etylene gas would be ex- 

 tremely uncontrollable. Think of how important it is 

 to have furnaces burning cleanly and efficiently. If 

 they are not, ethylene is a common by-product of in- 



complete combustion. And, once it is released in a 

 tightly sealed New England greenhouse and circu- 

 lated with either a fan jet or horizontal air flow sys- 

 tem, it does not take long for a crop to be exposed. 



The solution to this problem was to somehow lock 

 the ethylene up in a solution and apply it to the 

 plant in a liquid form. Almost 30 years ago, this was 

 accomplished by chemists. The liquid compound was 

 named ethephone and it was given the trade name 

 "Florel". Since then, if one considers agriculture on a 

 global scale, ethephon is considered to be the most 

 widely-used chemical growth regulator. In the United 

 States, about 90% of the ethephon used is for cotton, 

 to open the bolls uniformly. If you have any farming 

 your background — vegetable, to be exact, you may 

 have used a product named "EthreT'.to accelerate 

 ripening of tomatoes. This is just a different formula- 

 tion of ethephon. 



The beauty of ethephon (or Florel as we know it 

 in our business) is that the application is completely 

 localized. That is to say, if I have two geranium 

 plants side-by-side and spray one with Florel, the 

 untreated plant will not be affected at all. The plants 

 can be inches apart, but as long as there is no spray 

 drift carrying material to the untreated plant, it will 

 show absolutely no effects. Notice that I mention 

 drift. This is very important: spray drift will have an 

 effect on plants, and care and planning must there- 

 fore be practiced when treating crops. 



As I mentioned earlier, Florel's effect on floricul- 

 tural crops are numerous. It prevents flower initiation 

 and aborts already initiated flower buds. These ef- 

 fects are desirable on stock plants because all of the 

 plants photosynthates are channeled into vegetative 

 growth. This effect is also beneficial for rooted cut- 

 tings and recently transplanted finished crops be- 

 cause premature flowering can be eliminated. During 

 each of these production stages, hand labor is saved 

 because flowers and flower buds do not have to be 

 removed. Florel also stimulates lateral branching on 

 all stages of crop development from stock plants to 

 rooted cuttings to finished plants. Labor savings 

 once again are substantial. Florel also acts as a 'typi- 

 cal' growth regulator in inhibiting internode elonga- 

 tion, thereby controlling stem stretch. ^ 



If you are interested in learning more about Florel's 

 "Fountain of \outfi" potential and how to harness the 

 fascinating effects of this plant hormone, please contact me. 

 I hold workshops at my kndover, Massachusetts, greenhouse 

 range, have an entire notebook available that contains all of 

 my Florel writings, and publish a regular newsletter on the 

 effects of Florel on floricultural crops. I can be reached at 

 508-683-0692. 



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