Gloeckner CARNATION MANUAL 
ACIDITY 
Soils testing near neutral in reaction (pH 6.5 to pH 7.0) are considered desirable for carnations. How- 
ever, good carnations are to be found growing in a range of from pH 6.0 (acid) to pH 7.5 (alkaline). 
Hydrated lime and ground limestone are used at rates of 2 to 5 pounds per 100 square feet when soils 
are too acid, and sulfur is used at 1 to 2 pounds per 100 square feet when soils are too alkaline. Since 
the reaction is slow in both cases, it is desirable to incorporate these materials, thoroughly, into the 
soil in advance of planting, if tests show they are needed as corrective measures. 
MULCHES 
Light mulches of rotted manure, corncobs, spent-hops, buckwheat hulls, peat, etc., are sometimes used 
during late spring and summer. The value of these for carnations is questionable. Where the mulch is 
confined to a strip eight or ten inches wide along the south side of a bench, it may reduce the need 
for touch-up watering in that exposed area during hot weather. 
CULTIVATION 
Carnation plants have numerous feeder roots near the surface of the soil. If cultivation is used at all, 
it should be very shallow and chiefly to scrape off weeds that come up in benches of unsterilized 
soil. It is much better to depend on good advance preparation of soils to keep them open than to 
cultivate later to loosen them. 
OUTDOOR vs. INDOOR CULTURE 
Outdoor or field culture during the spring and summer months still is practiced extensively. The trend, 
though, is toward indoor culture, or keeping the plants continuously under glass or indoors. Planting 
outdoors enables a grower to keep benches of the previous year’s crop in production during late spring 
and on until midsummer. With indoor planting the benches must be emptied in the spring so that the new 
crop of carnation plants can be benched. That is about the only advantage or justification of outdoor 
culture. 
The labor involved in outdoor culture is much greater than benching indoors. Disease and insect control 
is more difficult and complicated and less effective outdoors. When properly handled, indoor culture 
gives production comparable to outdoor culture, despite the bushy heavy growth that plants make dur- 
ing the outdoor growing period. Apparently the damaging effect of lifting and benching heavy field 
plants during midsummer provides a check that offsets the heavier growth they make in the field. In 
any event the shoot count on field plants usually is far in excess of the cut record from the same plants. 
Benching in indoor culture is done from April 1 to June 1, with a large proportion of this planting done 
during the month of May. Field planting is done outdoors as early in the spring as the ground can 
be properly worked, and after danger of severe freezing weather is past. The plants grow outdoors 
into July, and are benched before August 1. 
OUTDOOR PRACTICES 
In field culture, the plants are either set 6 or 7 inches apart in the row, with rows 18 to 24 inches 
apart for row culture; or, they are planted check-row 6 to 8 inches apart in beds 3 to 4 feet wide. 
In the bed plantings hand cultivation is used, usually with less damage to the plants than when mechan- 
ical cultivation is used in row culture. Some growers using bed culture steam-sterilize the semi-raised 
outdoor beds, thereby keeping weeding costs down and controlling soil-borne diseases. When steriliza- 
tion is not used, carnations should not go back on the same field soil in less than five years. 
If the young plants are grown in bands indoors, the bands can be left on when planting in the field. 
Although this practice may restrict root growth some, there is much less transplanting shock later when 
the plants are lifted and brought indoors. 
In field culture, spraying, as discussed in the section on Insects and Diseases, is essential for keeping 
the plants clean and healthy. Irrigation is not always a necessity, but is particularly valuable at plant- 
ing time and for use just in advance of lifting the plants from the field. 
Benching of field plants indoors should be completed not later than August 1. Careless handling in 
that operation, resulting in bruising and breaking of tops and roots, will affect production adversely 
throughout the subsequent flowering season. 
