Resumen

REYES-MONTERO, J. A. et al. Development and quality of inflorescences of Antirrhinum majus L. produced in field conditions. Rev. Chapingo Ser.Hortic [online]. 2009, vol.15, n.spe, pp.57-65. ISSN 2007-4034.

The flower production of Antirrhinum majus L. ("snapdragon") is commonly carried out in greenhouse conditions using traditional cultivars. In the present paper we shown that it is possible the production of A. majus L. in the field conditions of the east of the State of Mexico municipality of Texcoco with commercial quality. In order to know that, it was designed an experiment in which: the 1) epoch or date of cultivation: autumn-winter 2006 and spring-summer 2007 and 2) four cultivars of A. majus L.: 'Plumblossom' and 'Orange' Potomac series and 'Bronze' and 'Red' Rocket series; were the two factors of an experimental design of randomized blocks. The population density was 80 plants·m^-2. The cultivars of the Potomac series in the cycle autumn-winter need less accumulation of development day degrees (1,254 °C·día^-1) to reach the commercial maturity than the series Rocket (1,727 °C·día^-1). Therefore, they were more efficient in the use of the radiation than the series Rocket (0.61g biomasa·MJ-1 and 0.36 g biomasa·MJ-1 respectively). The cultivars of the Potomac series obtained greater fresh biomass (137 g), length of stem (100 cm) and quality index (1.35 g·cm^-1). In addition, 70% of the stems of its cultivars 'Plumblossom' and 'Orange' were of "special" quality, the highest one for this species. The behavior of the cultivars of both series was similar in the cycle spring-summer. Although in autumn-winter the dry biomass accumulated, the leaf number and the days to crop were smaller. It is concluded that the cultivars of the series Potomac reached better development in both cycles of cultivation, and produced inflorescences with greater commercial quality that the cultivars of the series Rocket. Therefore, they would be cultivated in similar field conditions to present study.

Palabras llave : Series Potomac; series Rocket; radiation use efficiency; day-degree; biomass.