Hydroponic technology for lily flowers and bulbs production using rainwater and some common nutrient solutions

This experiment was carried out to investigate the potential of nutrient film technique (NFT) hydroponic system for flowers and bulbs production of the Asiatic hybrid lily cv. "Blackout" using rainwater and some common nutrient solutions (Hoagland No. 2 Basal Salt Mixture, Murashige and Skoog Basal Salt Mixture and White's Basal Salt) with rock wool cubes as medium with or without removal of flower buds and mother bulb scales. The results show that the NFT hydroponic system was an excellent method to produce lily flowers in 55 days. The rainwater could be applied as nutrient solution in this system to produce lily flowers in a good quality making this system easier and cheaper way to get into cut lily production. The results of analytical chemistry indicated that the rainwater contained some amounts of macro and micro elements in forms that plants can absorb and had a good value of pH (6.20) with favorite high ratio of NO sub(3):NH sub(4) making this water to be more efficient for plant growth and development as nutrient solution. The analytical results of nutrient solutions at flowering time showed that these solutions had different amounts of nutrients, values of pH, electrical conductivity (EC) and the ratio of NO sub(3):NH sub(4). The present results indicate that the number and quality of flowers were influenced by different nutrient solutions even so the flowers of all treatments were in a good quality. The NFT hydroponic system was shown to be the most effective for bulblets and daughters production, but different solutions showed different results and the Hoag solution and MS solution gave the best results related to the production of these propagated storage organs.