THE POSITION OF ORNAMENTAL PLANTS IN POLISH HORTICULTURE

Since the review of the economic situation of ornamental plants in Poland at the last symposium by Rudnicki (1985), there have been some important changes in the production pattern. While in some West European producer countries production has remained stable (Hoogndoorn and Sparnaaij, 1987), there has been further growth in the area of ornamentals in Poland (Table 1). Since 1978, the area of cut flowers produced in greenhouses increased from 329 hectares to 557 hectares in 1987 (Kubiak, 1988). Cultivation of ornamental plants in the open field, including bulbous, tuberous, annual, biennial and perennial shrubs and trees has also expanded from 2040 hectares in 1983 (Rudnicki, 1985) to 8150 hectares in 1987 (Table 3).

Among cut flowers (Table 2), the carnation is the number-one crop in our floriculture. We consider that with the rapid growth of energy costs and the increase of flower exports, the carnation will be the dominant plant growing in greenhouses and plastic tunnels.

The spectacular growth of gerbera and rose production during 1985 has remained stable and has even shown a decline (Table 2). In the last few years a systematic increase of pot plant production stimulated by exports to West European countries has been observed.

Considerable improvement in the quality of ornamental plants has been achieved by in vitro multiplication of wide groups of plants. Actually about 90 % of young gerbera plants are obtained through micropropagation.

About 80 % of the ornamental plants in Poland are produced in privately-owned farms. The area of greenhouses for such production has fluctuated from about 500 m² to about 2 hectares. Some of them are rather traditional whereas others are modern with automatisation of climate, watering and fertilisation control. In general, the quality of plants produced in these specialised farms has satisfied even the high standard of Western markets.

Among ornamentals growing in greenhouses and plastic tunnels, cut flowers constitute about 78 % of all flowers produced. Every year, the production of flowers has increased about 3.8 %. In the year 1981 the share of flowers in horticulture production constituted 4.6 %, whereas after 6 years it expanded to 6.3 %. During this period the amount of flowers purchased increased annually by about 27 %, whereas other horticultural products only increased by about 17.2 % (Kubiak, 1988).

The increase of flower production in Poland was strictly connected with their export. In 1982 we exported only 17,2 million flowers, but in 1987 already 67.2 million (Table 4). The share of flowers exported in relation to all horticulture was approximately 1 % and 2.7 % (Table 3).

A very important aspect of a symposium like this one is to bring together all the knowledge about growth regulators obtained in many research institutes. A small part of this knowledge will be given as well by our Institute. In the Division of Ornamental Horticulture, actually, there are six research departments employing close to 50 staff