Effect of pinching on yield and quality of Veronica longifolia cut flowers

Abstract

The present investigation was to study the effect of pinching on yield and quality on Veronica longifolia cut flower was carried out at Makerere University Agricultural Institute Kabanyolo research station. Pinching at different nodes above the ground levels i.e., 0, 2, 4 and non-pinched plants was done on three Veronica cultivars (blue, pink and white). The experiment was laid out in a Completely Randomized Block Design with 3 replicates and data collected was subjected to analysis of variance using R.studio platform and ANOVA used to test for differences LSD at 5% significant level. Among the 4 pinching treatments studied, parameters like plant height and spray flowers were maximum in nonpinched plants (C) treatment. Besides, plants under this treatment took the minimum number of days to flowering. On the other hand plants with the shortest height was recorded in pinching level 0 (i.e. pinching at zero node from the ground.). However, several growth and flowering parameters were greatly improved under pinching treatments, parameters such as stem number, leaf number, and branch number. Leaf number were observed to be maximum at pinching level 4. In all cultivars pinching level 4 showed to be the best to improve yield and not affecting quality characteristics of the flower.