Planning of globe artichoke plantlets production in nursery

The conventional method for globe artichoke propagation is based on the use of offshoots, ovoli (underground dried shoots with apical and lateral buds), portion of stump, etc. There is no special technique, in fact, they are harvested in commercial field for head production. The effectiveness of this procedure is obviously very limited and constitutes a serious obstacle to the development of this plant as a modern crop. The purpose of this research was to develop a nursery procedure for producing artichoke plantlets. The trials started in the summer of 2001 and were supported by MiPA "Artichoke" project. Trials were carried out in Sicily (South Italy) using two new clones from "in vitro" micropropagation of cv. Romanesco clone C3 and clone 9/8 from cv. Violetto di Sicilia. The planning for plantlets production consisted of three phases: 1) obtaining offshoots of some age from the mother plant by removing the apex and epigeal part of plant; 2) preparation of the offshoots from transplantation; 3) offshoots transplant and plantlets production in the nursery. The mean number of offshoots produced by each mother plant was about 20 for 'clone 9/8' and 17 for 'clone C3'. The percentage of obtained plantlets was about 83% of total offshoots transplanted. The time from apex removal of mother plant to offshoots production was on average 35 days, whereas the time from offshoots transplant to plantlets produced, which was not different between the two clones, significantly increased with delaying the time of transplant (from June to October).