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Effect of Electrical Conductivity (EC) on the Growth and Flower Production of Anthurium (Anthurium andreanum) 
Ghida Mohammad Eid 
,
Nabel Albatal 
,
Souheil Haddad
,
Nabel Albatal ,
Souheil Haddad
1 Horticulture department, Agriculture college, Damascus university, Syria
2 Professors, Horticulture department, Agriculture college, Damascus university, Syria
Author Correspondence author
International Journal of Horticulture, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 15 doi: 10.5376/ijh.2016.06.0015
Received: 11 Apr., 2016 Accepted: 23 May, 2016 Published: 21 Jun., 2016
2 Professors, Horticulture department, Agriculture college, Damascus university, Syria
Author Correspondence author
International Journal of Horticulture, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 15 doi: 10.5376/ijh.2016.06.0015
Received: 11 Apr., 2016 Accepted: 23 May, 2016 Published: 21 Jun., 2016
© 2016 BioPublisher Publishing Platform
This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Eid G.M., Albatal N., Haddad S., 2016, Effect of electrical conductivity (EC) on the growth and flower production of Anthurium (Anthurium andreanum), International Journal of Horticulture, 6(15): 1-7 (doi: 10.5376/ijh.2016.06.0015)
Abstract
The experiment was conducted in Agriculture engineering college in Damascus during the summer season 2007 to study the effect of electrical conductivity on the growth of Anthurium andreanum and its tolerance patterns, throughout special period of time. Our study was carried out on two varieties of Anthurium (Red queen-Elizabeth) under suitable and unified conditions for all plants of the two cultivars in the green house, supplemented by two kinds of water. The first is distilled water to which we added some salts of compound fertilizer of N: P: K with 1:0.5:1.5 to create different levels of electrical conductivity (0- 1- 1.5- 2) ds/m. The second is tap water where the electrical conductivity is 0.30 ds/m and so we added salts of compound fertilizer of N: P: K with 1:0.5:1.5 to it to create other levels of electrical conductivity (1- 1.5- 2) ds/m. One year old plants were used and many variables were studied. Results showed that when EC was increased above 1ds/m, the growth of the plant decreased including the number of flowers and leaves. It was clear that tab was better than distilled water.
Keywords
Anthurium; Cultivars; EC; Distilled water; Tap water; Flower cluster; Leaves; Diameter of cluster
1 Introduction
Anthuriums are neotropic herbaceous epiphytes perennials (Faragher et al., 2002), and are the largest genus (more than 1000 species) of the Araceae family (Gilman, 1999). Anthurium is found in the New World tropics from Mexico to northern Argentina and Uruguay, native to tropical America (Kuanprasert and Kuehnle, 1999). Once considered a novelty flower, Anthuriums with their bright play an important role in the floriculture (Lichty and Moniz, 1994), potted-plant and interiorscape industries with a long vase life of about six weeks and even more depending on the variety and season (Rijn, 2003).
Anthuriums, however, are not the easiest plant to propagate, and the environment in which they thrive is one where pathogens flourish. In addition, the Anthurium is considered a Along-term crop; for a propagator to get a just-stuck cutting to a propagated plant ready for sale at best months (Kamemoto et al., 1986). The longer the Anthuriums have to be kept in the propagators facility, the more opportunities there are for disease outbreaks and subsequent losses.
Therefore, there are many issues to be considered when evaluating propagation methods for Anthuriums (Alvarez et al., 2006).
The Anthurium in Latin languages is a word which is consists of two parts, the first is Anthu which means flower and the second is oura which means tail so it is known as Painted Tongue, Flamingo Flower (Flamingo Lily) or Tail Flower and that returns to the shape of its flowers which its pollen tube likes the tail (Rijin, 2003). Anthuriums are grown for their brightly colored flower spathes and their ornamental leaves.
The red, heart-shaped flower of Anthuriums is really a spathe, or waxy, modified leaf flaring out from the base of a fleshy spike (spadix) where the tiny real flowers grow (Wannakrairoj and Kamemoto, 1990). The Anthurium flowers appear as a roughness on the spadix as compared to a smooth spadix. Most common colors of Anthuriums are red and shades of red. The flowers grow during the spring and summer and they last a long time.
Anthurium will be propagated by suckers that have reached the 3 to 4 leaf stage any be separated from the mother plant and used as propagates (planting materials). If the cultivars do not produce suckers, the shoots produced by the remaining stump (a remnant, after the main part has been removed) may later be removed to produce more plants .Anthurium can also be propagated by means of seeds. However, seeds take 6 to 7 months to ripen after fertilization and must be sown immediately. They germinate in 2 to 8 weeks. Since propagation by seeds is slow, they are often used with the newer hybrids to produce new plants types and not as means of mass propagating an existing cultivars. Generally, Anthurium requires a high humidity about 70% (Fukui et al., 1995) and above average amount of water.
Anthurium is a tropical plants, it needs a temperature between 18-30°C at night and 27-30°C at day (Sathyarayana et al., 1998). Some researchers (Graser et al., 1991) (Graser and Xia, 1994) reported that the temperature at day must be less 30°C or it will cause some problems to the plant in summer, also if the temperature became very low, it will cause a decrease in the production flowers and aridness in the leaves (Chen et al., 2003).
Light is also important factor in Anthurium production. It grows in the half shady places which are not directly under the sun rays (Kuehnle et al., 1996(a)). It needs about 60-75% from light (Conover and Pool, 1990). Excessive sunlight will cause yellow and burned leaves and bleaching in blooms (Kuehnle et al., 1996(b)).
Organic and inorganic fertilizers can be used but the amount varies depending on the media used, light conditions, and cultivars. Frequent application of fertilizers in diluted concentration is more beneficial to Anthurium than less frequent application using concentrated formulations. And the pH is an essential factor to absorb the major and micro elements (Dufour and Guerin, 2005). Henny in 1991 reported that the best pH is 5.7for growing Anthurium.
Anthurium considers a very sensitive plants to salinity (Kuehnle et al., 1996(a)). Some studying explained that EC (electrical conductivity) has a very big effect on the growing and productivity of Anthurium, Sonneveld pointed in 1993 that the best EC for growing Anthurium is 0.7 ds/m.
2 Materials and Methods
Used plants: In this work, two cultivars were used of the species of Anthurium andreanum. The first cultivar is Red queen (a cultivar with red color flowers), the second cultivar is Elisabeth (a cultivar with pink color flowers). These plants were one year old and every plant has 2-3 flowers at the beginning of treatments, they planted in pots, the media was peat moss (Figure 1).
.png) Figure 1 Two species of Anthurium andreanum Note: Left: Red queen; Right: Elisabeth |
Study area: The study was done in the agriculture engineering college in Damascus University and all the experiments were conducted in the green house in the agriculture college in Damascus University. The green house was prepared to be appropriated with the climate conditions of these plants as following:
Temperature: It was 28°C ± 1°C at the day and 18°C at night. It was measured by a thermometer. Cooler Desert was used in the green house.
Humidity: 80± 5%. All plants was sprinkled by water about two times in the day
Irrigation: It was done by Drip Irrigation system, the fertilizer was added to the irrigation water.
The radiance: was about 15000 lux, it was measured by luximeter.
The media: Peat moss.
The experiment was laid out according to the Complete Block Design (CBD) with three replications (three blocks), the data were analyzed using SPSS program to find the differences between the means of all the studied treatments and least significant differences (LSD) at 0.05 level of significances.
Treatments: There were two experiments:
The first experiment: Effect of electrical conductivity (EC) on the growth and flower production of Anthuriumby using distilled water: There were four treatments:
1. The control, irrigation water was only distilled water (EC= 0).
2. Adding N: P: K with 1:0.5:1.5 to the irrigation water until EC= 1
3. Adding N: P: K with 1:0.5:1.5 to the irrigation water until EC= 1.5
4. Adding N: P: K with 1:0.5:1.5 to the irrigation water until EC= 2
The second experiment: Effect of electrical conductivity (EC) on the growth and flower production of Anthuriumby using tap water: There were four treatments:
1. The control, irrigation water was only tap water which its EC was 0.30.
2. Adding N: P: K with 1:0.5:1.5 to the irrigation water until EC= 1
3. Adding N: P: K with 1:0.5:1.5 to the irrigation water until EC= 1.5
4. Adding N: P: K with 1:0.5:1.5 to the irrigation water until EC= 2
Tap water was analyzed and it was consist of some elements as in the following Table 1:
The experiments were begun in Jun in 2007, data was taken every 15 days after the beginning of treatments. It was four treatments in every experiment, three replications in every treatment and six pots in every replication so there were eighteen pots of the plants in every treatment. The fertilizer was added in every irrigation and every pot was irrigated until 90% of the field capacity.
.png) Table 1 Chemical analysis of the elements in the tap water (mg/L) |
Investigated traits:
Number of flower clusters: It was measured the number of flower clusters in all plants in all replications.
Number of leaves: It was measured the number of leaves in all plants in all replications.
Diameter of flower clusters: It was measured the widest area in the spathe of the cluster in all replications.
3 Results and Discussion
Electrical conductivity in this study is considered as a salinity concentration in irrigation water (distilled or tap water).
The results in Tables 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 indicate that electrical conductivity has an effect on the productivity of Anthurium. This was true in the two studied cultivars. The results showed that the second treatment was the best treatment in the two cultivars and in the two experiments with significant effects in the above mentioned parameters (3.45, 4.25, 33.64, 37.09, 7.53, 7.84). It was noticed that when the level of electrical conductivity increased to 1 ds/m, number of flowers (number of flower clusters), leaves and diameter of flower clusters increased. But, they decreased when the levels of EC increased more than 1 ds/m. The results also showed that the productivity in the two cultivars was better when we used tap water than distilled water and recorded the highest values of the previous parameters under EC= 1 ds/m in Elisabeth cultivar in number of flower clusters and diameter of flower clusters (4.50, 9.26). The results in the tables are in the full blooms.
.png) Table 2 Effect of electrical conductivity on the number of flower clusters in the studied cultivars of Anthurium andreanum by using distilled water Note: Different letters indicate that mean difference between treatments are significant at 0.05 level in the same column |
.png) Table 3 Effect of electrical conductivity on the number of clusters in the studied cultivars of Anthurium andreanum by using tap water Note: Different letters indicate that mean difference between treatments are significant at 0.05 level in the same column |
.png) Table 4 Effect of electrical conductivity on the number of leaves in the studied cultivars of Anthurium andreanum by using distilled water Note: Different letters indicate that mean difference between treatments are significant at 0.05 level in the same column |
.png) Table 5 Effect of electrical conductivity on the number of leaves in the studied cultivars of Anthurium andreanum by using tap water Note: Different letters indicate that mean difference between treatments are significant at 0.05 level in the same column |
.png) Table 6 Effect of electrical conductivity on the diameter of flower cluster in the studied cultivars of Anthurium andreanum by using distilled water (cm) Note: Different letters indicate that mean difference between treatments are significant at 0.05 level in the same column |
.png) Table 7 Effect of electrical conductivity on the diameter of flower cluster in the studied cultivars of Anthurium andreanum by using tap water (cm) Note: Different letters indicate that mean difference between treatments are significant at 0.05 level in the same column |
4 Discussion
Osmond signed in 1976 that increasing of electrical conductivity and the quality of irrigation water generally will affect on all growing aspects of plants, and the increasing of salinity in all growing steps will reduce the growing rate, and this in its return will reduce the productivity.
All the varieties and cultivars differ from each other in their sensitivity and tolerance for increasing salts (Francois et al., 1988, Mass and Hoffman, 1977). Our results explained the effect of EC on the growing aspects. It was shown that when the gradual increasing of EC to more than level (EC=1), that was caused a decreasing in number of flowers, leaves and diameter of flowers. This is agree with Rijin research in 2003 who confirmed that EC level in irrigation water of Anthurium plant should be 1 ds/m for young plants and 1.7 ds/m for older plants. Also Özcelik and his partner assured in 2006 that Anthurium plant needs an EC (1-1.5 ds/m) to a good productivity, it depends on the age of plant.
The reason that explains our results that when the salinity increases, that will cause a difficulty for plant to absorb water and that will cause a toxicity because of absorbing some elements like Cl and Na which has a negative effect on the permeation and ventilation in the media, that will cause an oxygen absence and small roots which become unable to absorb an adequate water because of transpiration which is a process by which moisture is carried through plants from roots to small pores on the underside of leaves, where it changes to vapor and is released to the atmosphere and this will cause a stop in the elongation of plant (Greenway et al., 1980; Devitt et al., 1984) and a burning in the edge of leaves and a decreasing in yield (Liewellyn, 2005).
Number of flower clusters and diameter of flower clusters were lower in the cultivar Red Queen more than the cultivar Elizabeth when the EC became more than 1 ds/m and that adverts to that Elizabeth had the ability to synthesis the Dray matter by photosynthesis to get all its needs in this condition more than the other cultivar, also increasing the EC will cause an increasing in salinity in the media, that will cause a decreasing in the growth of plant, ornamental plants and green landscape had been classified as a sensitive plants for salinity (Francois, 1980). Bass in 1994 assured that most of these plants product flowers and leaves when EC is 0.7-0.8 ds/m, in this levels, they be able to absorb the necessary elements which are very important for increasing the productivity, Anthurium plant is one of these sensitive plants.
5 Conclusion
This study showed some results about the effect of EC and quality of water irrigation in Anthurium plant as a cut flower, but many researches about fertilizing and its importance in the nutrition of this plant must be continued to get a high productivity that is good for sale. Moreover, the differences between the cultivars about their tolerance of EC will lead us to do researches about genetic studies which are important to put a program for getting plants with high productivity.
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. Anthurium
. Cultivars
. EC
. Distilled water
. Tap water
. Flower cluster
. Leaves
. Diameter of cluster
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