Analysis of impact of calcium foliar feed on the wilting rate of Rose flowers over time

Abstract

Rose flower contributes to Rwanda’s economy and it is distributed along the worldwide as it is a commercial crop. The quality of rose flower also contributes to the development of the export market. Despite this contribution, profitable production of rose flower is limited by the wilting process over time which lead to the lower production. A study was set up to analyze if the Calcium foliar feed can reduce the wilting rate of rose flowers across the time. The main objective of this thesis is to analyze the impact of Calcium foliar feed on the wilting rate of rose flowers over time using growth curve model. The data was analyzed using MATLAB R2014a and the results show that the fitted growth curves or trends in all groups is modeled with a second order polynomial. The results also reveal that the foliar feed 5 produces the highest average wilting score while foliar feed 2 has the least average score. The results also show that the wilting rate of rose flowers in all groups increase as time of measurements increase. In addition, the results show that the wilting rate of rose flowers are not the same in all foliar feeds over time. Moreover, foliar feed has significant effects on the wilting process of rose flowers over time.