Potted freesia- need them to flower soon!!

[ruthybaby]

Hello

I am new to the forum! I am growing potted freesia in the greenhouse for a University project and need to know how to induce/speed up the flowering process because I need the flowers for an experiment!


The corns were planted in batches of 30 once a week for 2 months. They are in 5" pots and are in the greenhouse at ~22'C and have 16 hours light each day. The older plants are around 2 foot tall and have wide, strong bases, but as of yet - no flowers. They are watered twice weekly.

I hope someone is able to help

[Kisal]

I googled around a little and found an couple of ISHS articles about forcing bloom in freesia. You'll find the abstracts at these links:

https://www.actahort.org/members/showpdf?booknrarnr=14_13

https://www.actahort.org/members/showpdf?booknrarnr=14_12

I understand that freesia flower after 4 months growing time, and note that the article at the first link I gave states the optimum temperature for flowering is 12ºC to 15ºC. There is also a point at which the day length must be increased to more than 16 hours. (I'm not sure what point your plants have reached.)

I'm not a member of ISHS, so perhaps you would find it beneficial to join. If you're a student, your school might already have a membership that you could use to access the whole article. Check with your school's library.