Floriculture and Landscape Architecture

Varieties released

Jathi malli (Jasmine grandiflorum)

  • CO.1: It is a secondary clonal selection from germplasm collection. The average flower yield is 10,144 kg/ha in a year. The flower buds are pink tinged with long corolla tube. It is suitable for oil extraction with a concrete recovery of 0.29%. The concrete yield is 29.42 kg per hectare.
  • CO.2: It is an induced mutant developed by treating the vegetative cuttings of CO.1 Pitchi with gamma rays @ 1.5 kR. It is characterised by bold pink buds. The flower buds are bolder than CO.1. This variety is amenable for earlier and quicker tying of buds in garland making. It yields on an average 11.68 tonnes of flower buds/ha which is 19.5 per cent higher than CO.1 Pitchi.

Mullai (Jasminum auriculatum)

  • Parimullai : It is a clonal selection from a germplasm clone. The plants exhibit resistance to gall mite. The yield is 7800 kg of flower buds per hectare per year. The buds are white with moderate corolla tube length (1.25cm). The concrete recovery is 0.29%.
  • CO.1: It is a secondary clonal selection from a local type. The flower buds are white and bold with long corolla tube (1.50 cm) than Parimullai. The yield is 8800 kg of flower buds per hectare in a year. The jasmine concrete recovery is 0.34%.
  • CO.2: It is a clonal selection from progenies with desirable flower bud characters like long corolla tube and longer bud. The length of the corolla tube is 1.70 cm while it is 1.5 cm in CO.1. It yields on an average of 11,198 kg of fresh flower buds as against 8,825 kg in CO.1. It exhibits complete field tolerance to the phyllody disease and gall mite infestation.

Star jasmine (Jasminum nitidum)

  • CO 1 star jasmine: It flowers throughout the year. The flower buds bold, attractive, dark pink coloured with good keeping quality. The flower buds are easy to pluck and highly suitable for string-making due to bold buds with long corolla tube. Opened flowers are pure white and star shaped and emit mild fragrance. The attractive plant architecture makes the plant an ideal decorative ornamental also. Average flower bud yield is 7.5 ton/ha/year.

Chrysanthemum                   

  • CO.1: It is a selection made form a bulk population introduced from Hosur of Dharmapuri district. Flowers are an attractive canary yellow coloured. The flowers have thick, sturdy stalks, which are an added advantage for easy tying in the making of garland and other decoratives. Average yield on main crop is 16.7 t/ha.
  • CO.2: This is a clonal selection from among the germplasm type introduced from the National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow. It has several attributes like more number of flowering shoots per plant, more number of flowers per plant, invisibility of the disc in the flower (capitulum) which is considered a desirable feature in the trade circle and a novel new purple colour (Rhodamine purple–29) as compared to the conventional more familiar carmine yellow colour of CO.1 and other local varieties.

Hibiscus

  • CO.1 (Thilagam): It is an inter-generic hybrid between Hibiscus rosasinensis and Malvaviscus arboreus. It bears attractive double flowers which are having attractive carmine red petals without any throat colouration. It is highly floriferous yielding 3055 flowers per plant in a year. It is suitable for planting as a single specimen in lawn, foundation planting and for pot culture.
  • CO.2 (Punnagai): It was evolved by selection from the open pollinated seedlings of ‘Chandrika’ variety. The flowers are attractive with apricot yellow colour having red throat. The plant yields about 988 flowers per year. It is suitable for planting as single specimen in lawn and for pot culture.
  • CO.3: It is a clonal hybrid between Bright Yellow and Red Gold cultivars. It produces apricot yellow flowers having ‘signal red’ throat. The flower colour gradually changes to Chinese yellow with Turkey red throat in the evenings. It is floriferous and produces on an average 1309 flowers per plant every year.

Barleria

  • CO.1: It is a clonal selection from the local type. It bears attractive pink flowers, producing on an average 2.11 kg of flowers per plant in a year. It is produces flower early and flowers become available in about 210 days after planting.

 

Technologies developed

  • Protected cultivation technologies: Cut chrysanthemum, anthurium and Dendrobium orchid
  • Precision production technologies: Jasmine, marigold and carnation
  • Technologies for jasmine: Drip irrigation, fertigation, mulching, export packaging technology
  • Micropropagation protocols: Tuberose, petunia, anthurium, Dendrobium orchid and  chrysanthemum
  • Dry flowers: Processing, product making and packaging techniques