Influence of some cultural techniques on corm enlargement in Brodiaea

Over the last few years, the Italian consumers have been seeking for newness: this has favoured the market development of "minor" bulbous plants such as Brodiaea, Bletilla, Eucharis. The literature on Brodiaea propagation, enlargement and cultural techniques being very poor, the present research was undertaken to assess the influence of the minicorm size and their plant density in order to obtain material for enlargement and for cut flower production purposes. The trial was run in 1996-97 in a field located in Apulia (Italy). The following minicorm sizes were compared: < 2 cm, 2-3 cm, 3-4 cm. Moreover, for each of the above size classes, two plant densities were compared: 400 and 800 minicorms/m2. The first results of this research have pointed out that the mean total yield of corms per unit area was greatly affected by the treatments being compared. Moreover, the total mean yield/m 2 was directly proportional to the density applied. The yield results were also divided in quality classes: a considerable number of 5+ cm corms to be used for cut flower production (without a further enlargement cycle) was obtained from the biggest corms.