Role of Growing Medium in Yield and Quality of Anthurium: A Review

Anthurium belongs to family Araceae and is highly praised flowering plant for its colourful long lasting unique flower and shining foliage. It is also an excellent plant for interior and as cut flower, especially for flower arrangement. The most suitable part of anthurium is modification of the leaf and botanically known as ‘spathe’. Heart shaped spathe emerges on the long flower stalk with a spadix. This plant blooms almost continuously under suitable conditions. It is epiphytic in nature with climbing, creeping and arboreous stems including many aerial roots that aid in taping water and nourishment. Quality and productivity of anthurium flowers depends on the growing medium. Most of the anthurium growers prepare own their growing media, but they do not know that the low productivity and quality might come from an poor potting mixture that they are using. One of the most important components of anthurium cultivation is the choice of growing substrate or medium. It is known to grow best in a well aerated medium with good water retention capacity and drainage. A good medium needs to be able to anchor the roots and stems so that the plant will not topple over as it grows larger, yet it should provide sufficient moisture, nutrient and aeration to the plant. The objective of this review is to present a summary of the influence of various growing medium on the growth, flowering, productivity and quality of anthurium grown in protected conditions. The results from the literature prove that the productivity of anthurium tends to be more in those plants which grown in different growing medium compared to soil grown plants.