Journal of Horticultural Science & Ornamental Plants 4 (1): 01-06, 2012

ISSN 2079-2158
IDOSI Publications, 2012

Growth Behavior of Rose Plants in Low Cost Hydroponics Culture

A. Das, S. Bhui and D. Chakraborty
Department of Plant Physiology, Faculty of Agriculture, Bidhan Chandra
Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Nadia, West Bengal-741235, India
Abstract: Three commercial cultivars of rose were grown successfully in a low cost device of single plant
culture system of hydroponics. The device was also found suitable to measure both root and shoot growth
parameter from the standing crop. During a 165 days period of winter season different growth parameters of the
rose cultivars grown in this system were recorded. Variation of growth pattern was noticed among the cultivars.
Significant correlations were observed among different growth parameters. The root growth parameters like
length of the root, number of root branches and root volumes had direct influence on shoot characters at
different growth stages. The fresh weight of the plants showed significant correlation with plant height, number
of axillary buds, root length, number of root branches and also with the number of flowers. Water requirement
of the cultivars although varied within the season, showed direct correlation with root and shoot growth. The
hydroponics device and procedure are recommended for the rose gardening in soil stress area for both urban
and city growers.
Key words: Rose

Hydroponics

Growth

INTRODUCTION

quantity yield of rose flowers [2]. However, more scientific

information on plant growth behavior of different cultivars
is still necessary to facilitate commercial cultivation of
rose [4].
An alternative method of soil based rose cultivation
is the hydroponics system where the plant can be grown
instead of soil in nutrient solution with the help of
suitable devices [5]. Due to number of socio-economic
factors, soil stress and environment situations,
hydroponics, in the broad term has recently gained
momentum and being practiced by many commercial crop
growers for the production of vegetables, flowers and
ornamental crops [6]. Soilless cultivation of rose is
normally practiced by using inert rooting media like
perlite, coco peat, rock wool etc. Several attempts have
also been made to evaluate the effect of these inert media
on plant growth [5]. The term hydroponics was coined
by Gericke [7] where no such rooting media were used
and the plants were grown in complete water solution [8].
For the plant scientists, this system may also offers an
opportunity to learn more about the growth behaviour of
the plants and their interaction with the environment. If
the plant can be grown completely on water solution, the
growth of the root, the hidden half of the plant system

Rose, the Queen of flower, is preferred worldwide

since the ancient time of human civilization. The plant is
perennial in nature and belongs to the genus Rosa, within
the family Rosaceae. There are over 150 species under the
genus Rosa those are cultivated in different parts of the
world. An innumerable number of cultivars and types of
rose plants have been created by both of the professional
and amateur gardeners in the long run of the history of
rose plant gardening [1]. During the present era of
commercial cultivation, rose has also earned its due
importance following its bright historical background.
The area under rose cultivation is increasing steadily due
to its heavy demand in domestic as well as international
market [2]. Normally rose is cultivated on soil beds. Fertile
loamy soil enriched with organic matter and mineral
nutrients having good water holding capacity as well as
drainage provision and a pH in between 6 and 6.5 are
considered the most suitable for the cultivation of rose
[3]. Several horticultural practices for rose cultivation
those includes propagation, planting, bed-preparation,
nutrient and water management, inter culture operations
etc. have been recommended to increase the quality and

Corresponding Author: A. Das, Department of Plant Physiology, Faculty of Agriculture, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya,
Nadia, West Bengal-741235, India. E-mail: pgnclab@gmail.com.

J. Hort. Sci. & Ornamen. Plants, 4 (1): 01-06, 2012

which till date is poorly studied compared to other plant

parts can also be observed in a regular manner [9]. Since
its initiation of use, hydroponics technology was
confined with some sophisticated high cost devices. For
more effective use of this technology invention of low
cost devices are necessary. Also there is an urgent need
to make the hydroponics procedures plant specific as the
growth behavior and requirement of different crops varies
widely [6]. This investigation was made to estimate and
compare the plant growth behaviour pattern with the
necessary water requirement under a balanced nutrition
condition for three commercial cultivars of rose. For this
the plants were grown completely on water solutions
without using any inert rooting medium in a model device
of hydroponics prepared with low cost materials. The
efficacy of this technique and system for hydroponics
culture of rose could also be judged from this
investigation.

The nutrient solution was prepared with tap water

following the composition of Hoagland and Arnon [10].
After every 15 days interval nutrient was added from the
stock solution either in full or half doses. In each bucket
equal amount of nutrition was applied through out the
growth period. pH of the nutrient solution was checked
and maintained within 6-6.5 in regular interval.
After planting the saplings in the hydroponics
culture different growth parameters were recorded at
every 15 days interval for a period of nearly 165 days
(through out a complete winter season of West Bengal,
India, November to mid March). These included plant
height, number of shoot branches, length of shoot
branches, number of axillary buds developed in the plants,
total plant weight, root length, number of root branches,
root volume, number of flowers and the actual water
requirement. Among these parameters root volume was
measured by inserting the total root mass of a standing
plant in a measuring cylinder, completely filled up with
water and by estimating the replaced amount of water
from the cylinder by that. To measure the total plant
weight, the blank weight of the device without nutrient
solution was initially taken and recorded. The increase in
weight of the blank device with the standing plant gave
the measure of the total plant weight. The amount of water
required daily that to be added to maintain the initial water
level of the container was recorded separately. As there
was no other way to loss of water from the container, the
amount of water required to be added gave the estimation
of water requirement of the plant. Analysis of data was
done by the statistical software SPSS 10.0.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Three commercial rose cultivars namely Tajmahal,
Paradise and Calcutta were collected from the local
nursery. The saplings of these cultivars were of 45 days
old, developed through budding on Rosa indica stock
plant and grown in a rooting media of rice husk and FYM
(1:1). For each cultivar five saplings on an average of
15 cm. length were taken. They were transferred in equal
sized Single Plant Culture System devices of hydroponics
with the following procedure.
Single Plant Culture System device of hydroponics
was designed following the principle of Gericke [7]. Small
plastic buckets of 18 cm height and 20cm diameter having
a capacity of containing 3.5l of water was used. At the
extreme lower edge of the bucket one outlet was made
which was connected by a 0.5mm diameter polythene pipe
for drainage purpose. Thermocol sheets of 2-3 cm
thickness were used to cover the upper part of the bucket.
In this cover sheet two apertures were created, one larger
at the centre to hold the sapling and other smaller at the
side to enter the air tube. The nutrient solution within the
plastic bucket was aerated with the help of aqua pump
(3 watt) that supplied air through the air tube. The rose
saplings collected from the nursery were at first separated
from the rooting medium. The root parts of the saplings
were thoroughly washed under running tap water. They
were carefully inserted in each bucket through the centre
aperture of the cover in such a way that their roots could
sufficiently reach and immersed by the nutrient solution.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Three cultivars of rose could be grown well in the
Single Plant Culture System of hydroponics as
constructed above (Fig. 1). From the estimation of
different growth parameters of the plants at every 15 days
intervals it could also be revealed that all the cultivars
showed a normal and steady growth in this hydroponics
system. The total amount of different component of
nutrients applied to the cultivars during 165 days growth
period following the standard of Hoagland and Arnon [10]
is given in Table 1. Neither any deficiency symptom due
to unavailability of nutrition nor any adverse effect due to
over-nutrition was noticed among the plants due to the
application of the given amount of nutrition. There was
also variation in plant growth parameters and water
requirement among the three cultivars.
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J. Hort. Sci. & Ornamen. Plants, 4 (1): 01-06, 2012

were higher in the cv. Calcutta than the other two

cultivars. Number of shoot branches was almost similar
for the cvs. Tajmahal and Paradise but the lengths of the
shoot branches were more in Tajmahal than Paradise
(Fig. 3 and 4). Number of axillary bud initiations was also
the highest in the cv. Calcutta (60.70) followed by cv
Paradise (50.73) and the cv. Tajmahal (40.24) during
165 days in hydroponics culture. In the correlation
analysis it was also observed that the two growth
parameters e.g. shoot branch length per plant and the
number of shoot branches had significant correlation with
the initiation of axillary buds of the plants throughout the
period of observation (Table 2).

Table 1: Total amount of different nutrient components applied per plant for
the period of 165 days growth in hydroponics culture of rose
cultivars
Name of the nutrients

Amount (g)

Macro nutrients
Ca(NO3)2. 4 H2O

47.500

KNO3

20.390

KH2PO4
MgSO4. 7 H2O

5.4900
19.880

Micro nutrients
H3BO3

0.1200

MnCl2. 4H2O

0.0700

ZnSO4. 7H2O

0.0090

CuSO4. 5H2O

0.0030

H2MoO4. H2O

0.0008

Chelating Agent
FeEDTA

0.4870

Fig. 3: Number of shoot branch per plant in three rose

cultivars developed during 165 days in
hydroponics

Fig. 1: Rose cultivar Calcutta, grown in hydroponics

culture at 75 days

Fig. 4: Length of shoot branches per plant of three rose

cultivars during 165 days in hydroponics
Fig. 2: Plant height growth pattern of three rose cultivars
during 165 days in hydroponics
The plant height of the cultivar Tajmahal increased
significantly higher than the other two cultivars during
the entire period of study. The plant height growth of the
other two cultivars cv. Calcutta and Paradise was almost
similar (Fig. 2). The character plant height showed
significant correlation with plant weight and also number
of flowers of the plants (Table 2). Number of shoot
branches and the length of the shoot branches per plant

Fig. 5: Root length growth of three rose cultivars during

165 days in hydroponics
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J. Hort. Sci. & Ornamen. Plants, 4 (1): 01-06, 2012

Fig. 6: Number of root branches per plant of three rose

cultivars developed during 165 days in
hydroponics

Fig. 7: Increase of fresh weight per plant of three rose

cultivars during 165 days in hydroponics

Like the shoot growth, root growth pattern of all the

cultivars remained steady throughout 165 days in
hydroponics culture (Fig. 5 and 6). There was no
significant variation observed among the cultivars for
length of the root and number of root branches. However
total volume of root differed significantly among them
after the 90 days growth period. From 90 to 165 days
growth period, root volume of the cv. Calcutta remained
the highest (110-141 cc) followed by Tajmahal (70-98 cc)
and Paradise (54-82 cc). Up to a period of 90 days growth
in the hydroponics culture significant and negative
correlations were noticed between the root growth
parameters e.g. root length, number of root branches with
the shoot growth parameter e.g. number of shoot
branches, length of the shoot branches and the initiation
of axillary buds. At the later phase of growth however, the
root volume showed a significant and positive correlation
with the length of the shoot branches (Table 2).
The data of the fresh weight of the plants during
165 days growth period showed a sigmoid growth pattern
for all the cultivars (Fig. 7). Three cultivars differed
significantly in total plant weight. The plant weight of cv.
Tajmahal always remained the highest. The plant weight
of the cv. Calcutta was higher than the cv. Paradise up to
135 days growth and then their difference became
negligible. Total plant weight of the cultivars had
significant correlations with the other growth parameters
at different phases of growth. At the early stage of growth
(30 days) total plant weight had a significant correlation
(r=0.571) with the shoot branch number. From the 75 days
onward its correlation was significant with plant height,
root length, number of root branches and also with the
number of flowers. Total plant weight also showed a
significant and negative correlation with the number of
axillary buds (Table 2).

Fig. 8: Total water requirement per plant of three rose

cultivars during 165 days in hydroponics
At the 30 days growth stage in the hydroponics
culture cv. Tajmahal and Calcutta had significantly higher
requirement of water than the cv. Paradise (Fig. 8). After
this stage, water requirement of the cultivars did not
significantly differ up to 75 days growth period. At the
90 days stage water requirement of the cv. Calcutta
increased much and its difference with cvs. Tajmahal and
Paradise became wider. Again after 105 days onward cv.
Tajmahal had the highest requirement of water followed
by the cv. Calcutta and Paradise. In general, water
requirement of the plants showed significant and negative
correlation with axillary bud initiation at the 30 days
(r= -0.600); significant and positive correlation with plant
weight at 45 days (r= 0.553); with number of shoot
branches between 45-105 days (r= 0.590-0.727) and with
the length of the shoot branches through out the growth
period (15-165 days) in the hydroponics culture. At the
120 days growth stage, water requirement of the plants
showed significant and positive correlations with the root
characters e.g. length of the root (r=0.542) and root
volume (0.516). In the later phases, the significant
correlation between water requirement and root volume
was found to be maintained (Table 2).
Rose soil less cultivation is being successfully
practiced in the commercial nurseries using various inert
rooting media like perlite, coco peat, rock wool etc. In the
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J. Hort. Sci. & Ornamen. Plants, 4 (1): 01-06, 2012

Table 2: Correlation matrix of different plant growth characters of rose in hydroponics culture at 165 days growth stage
Number of
Plant height

Shoot

Number of Root

shoot branch Branch length shoot bud

Plant height

Number of shoot branch

0.154

Shoot branch length

0.069

0.689**

Number of shoot bud

-0.141

0.767**

0.55*

length

Number of Root

Plant

Flower

Water

root branch

weight

number.

requirement

volume

Root length

0.444

-0.172

0.049

-0.44

Number of root branch

0.314

-0.386

-0.507

0.36

0.036

Root volume

-0.151

0.209

-0.05

0.093

Plant weight

0.84

-0.189

-0.189

-0.517*

0.653**

0.533*

-0.195

Flower number.

0.515*

-0.1

-0.075

-0.35

0.508

0.101

-0.092

0.559*

Water requirement

0.331

0.419

-0.262

0.1

0.271

0.417

0.614*

0.712**

0.181

1
-0.405

0.556*

**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level

*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level

sophisticated devices [5]. In the model of hydroponics

presented here the plants were completely grown on water
solution without the help of any inert rooting media. The
basic principle of Gericke [7] to use the term
hydroponics was strictly followed in this investigation.
This experiment clearly showed that by using very cheap
materials like small plastic buckets of 18 cm height and
20cm diameter, thermocol sheets and aqua pump, the
device could be prepared for the successful growth of
rose plants. On an average (5.8 0.58) flowers could be
yielded from the three cultivars within a growing season
(165 days). In the open field in India the yield of cut flower
of rose is about 13.5 blooms in a year [11]. It can also be
estimated from the data shown above that the total
requirement of nutrition and water required for this system
of growth were less than that of the normal recommended
dose of rose cultivation reported earlier [12, 13].
Commercial rose cultivars were developed on the
basis of their variations in growth pattern and flower yield
[2]. This was also reflected in the present study where
variation of different growth parameters among the three
commercial cultivars of rose in hydroponics culture
system was very prominent. The cv. Tajmahal had the
highest plant height, shoot branch length, weight of the
plant, least number of axillary buds and yielded maximum
number of flowers per plant (7.35 0.58). Production of
rose flowers more in the longer stem have been reported
earlier in several works [14]. Also it was a common
experience of the rose growers that the axillary buds had
a direct relation with the branch numbers [14]. The results
described above in this investigation corroborated all
these previous observations on rose plants. In addition to
that it could also be revealed that the root characters of
the plants e.g. length of the root, number of root branches
and root volumes had a direct influence on shoot

characters and that varied at different growth stage as

described above. Moreover, the measurement of the fresh
weight from the standing plant and the actual water
requirement of the plants were the two unique
observations could be taken from this experiment by
hydroponics. The fresh weight of plant was associated
with many desirable growth parameters including the
number of flowers at different stages of development. The
requirement of water of the three cultivars within a season
had distinct differences and it also had direct correlations
with many growth parameters at different stages of
growth. Such data on growth parameters including water
use that directly associated with the physiology of rose
plants are scarce in earlier findings [15, 4].
From the above observation it can be concluded that
by the hydroponics system developed through low cost
materials, rose cultivation can easily be adopted in the soil
stress area. Also this system may be an ideal alternative
for the horticultural hobbyist of the cities who usually
practiced soil pot culture of rose plants. Apart from its
commercial implications this can also be used for rose
plants as an ideal device for the estimation of different
growth parameters and their interrelations. This includes
specially the study of root system without damaging the
standing crop that normally remains as the hidden half of
a plant system and poorly studied till date.
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