From Vegetable Crop Sience to Ornamental Floriculture

In order to establish a forcing culture system for asparagus using one-year-old crowns, the influences of cultivar, seed germination, crown size, soil temperature, male and female plants and the period of cold storage in relation to the date of bud sprouting and yield of spears were investigated. 'Hidel' spear yield was the highest among the five clutivars examined. Seed germination with sulphuric acid or polyethylene glycol treatment was rapid. The difference between yield from big crowns (mean weight:800g) and medium crowns (600g) was not significant;however,small crowns(400g) were not suitable for forced culture. The ratio of unmarketable spears was higher at a soil temperature of 25℃ than 20℃. Neither the ratio of the total number of spears to crown weight nor of spear yield to crown weight was significantly different between male and female plants. The number and yield of spears were not significantly affected by the length of the crown storage periods.