Perennial Flax: A Potential Cut Flower Crop

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4 Scopus citations

Abstract

The genus Linum L. contains ≈200 primarily blue-flowered species, including several ornamentals, yet no reports exist regarding the cut flower potential of this genus. The objective of this study was to evaluate the cut flower potential of perennial flax cultivars (L. perenne L. ‘Blue Flax’ and ‘Sapphire’; Expt. 1, 2018) and accessions (L. austriacum L., L. lewisii Pursh., and L. perenne; Expt. 2, 2019), and record traits that will enable breeding and selection for improved cut flower performance. The mean vase life across both cultivars in Expt. 1 was 9.2 days. In Expt. 2, L. perenne had the longest average vase life (9.3 days), followed by L. austriacum (9.1 days) and L. lewisii (8.3 days). The floral preservative (Floralife 300) significantly increased vase life by an average of 1.7 days in Expt. 1, and 1.6 days in Expt. 2, and resulted in a significantly greater number of flowers (≈2x) in both experiments. Significant variation was observed among genotypes for most traits, including vase life (6.2 to 11.3 days) and number of flowers (1.3 to 10.5), highlighting the opportunities for improving the potential of cut flower perennial flax through breeding.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)221-230
Number of pages10
JournalHortScience
Volume57
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 American Society for Horticultural Science. All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • Floral preservative
  • Flower longevity
  • Linum austriacum
  • Linum lewisii
  • Linum perenne
  • Vase life

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