The objective of this research was to evaluate the vegetative and reproductive behavior as well as the length of growing stage of two chrysanthemum cultivars under protected environment and submitted to different number of prunings and pot sizes. The experiment was conducted from April 30 until December 12, 2003 in a greenhouse located at the University of Santa Maria, RS, Brazil. Three pot sizes were used: 11, 15 and 20. The variance analysis for plant height and stem diameter was conducted under a bifactorial scheme: number of prunings (1ª up to 31ª week), for each combination of cultivar and pot size. Regarding the inflorescence production, they were considered as treatments the numbers of prunings for each pot size and chrysanthemum cultivar. The means were compared using the Tukey Test (a=5%). Plant height, stem diameter and number of inflorescences increased as the number of prunings and pot size increased, however, stem diameter decreased on both cultivars. The cultivar Veria Dark was less responsive than cultivar Papiro. In order to produce good quality plants, there is a necessity to increase the number of prunings as pot size increases. To cultivate would see them Dark and Papiro had presented good performance in the region of Santa Maria, RS, mainly with the use of four lappings of the tops of corn for the vases number 11 and five for the vases number 15 and 20, being the cycle of culture of 21 weeks in the vase number 11 and 25 weeks, in the vase number 15 and 20.
Dendranthema indicum Tzelev; plant quality; growing stages
