Abstract
This study was carried out in the College of Agriculture and Forestry, Mosul University, between February and November/2006 on Gerbera jamesonii cv. Esstafette (red inflorescence) and Essandre (yellow inflorescence), to investigate the effect of stem tip excision and spraying plants with benzyl adenine (BA) at 0, 250 and 500 mg.l-1 or Cycocel (CCC) at 500 and 1000 mg.l-1 separately, on vegetative growth character. The factorial experiment was conducted by using randomized complete block design, each treatment was replicated three times with four plants in block. The results can be summarized as follows: Plants of Essandre cultivars gave largest values of leaves number, leaves area, number of lateral shoots and length of lateral shoots significantly. Excision of apical portion of stem caused a significantly increase of leaves number, chlorophyll content and number of lateral shoots. While the largest length of lateral shoots, higher dry weight obtained when the apical portion of stem wasn't excised. Spraying plants with BA at 500 mg.l-1 caused a significantly increase of leaves area, chlorophyll content, number of lateral shoots and dry weight compared with control. But plant sprayed with CCC gave higher values of leaves number and number of lateral shoots. In general, pinched plants of Estafette and Essandre cultivars sprayed with BA at 500 mg.l-1 revealed best results of leaves number 22.00 and 25.48 leaves /plant, leaves area 1928.0 and 1926.7 cm2, chlorophyll content 10.65 and 10.39 mg. g fresh weight for two cultivars, respectively.
