Learning how to water plants to increase growth in pots, container or garden - especially how to water roots and tubers. Specialities: root growth or tuber growth of lawns, fuchsias, geraniums, dahlias and begonias.

5 August 2011

Gibberellins Rampant Under August Skies

August in the UK is a difficult month for fuchsias. If the hot muggy weather doesn't allow botrytis to destroy plants, the sudden appearance of dark thundery skies followed by prolonged warm dull days produces long (leggy) growth through etiolation.

PROBLEMS INDOORS WITH CONTAINED AIR
Things are not so bad OUTDOORS where darkening skies (loss of sun) do lower temperatures more quickly. No. It's INDOORS where problems really occur. Contained air (either by walls or glass) does not cool down nearly quickly enough to accommodate reduced light; the plants 'assume' they have competition, so therefore need a sudden spurt of growth to outgrow this. Hence leggy plants.

Etiolation is caused by elongation of the stem's vertical cell walls, controlled by the growth hormones 'gibberellins'

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