Autumn Joy – A New Variety of Chrysanthemum for Garden Decoration

A field experiment was conducted during 2003–07 at the research farm of department of Floriculture and Landscaping. The objective was to develop varieties suitable as cut flower, loose flower, pot culture and garden decoration. The recently released variety Autumn Joy (hybrid of White Bouquet X Flirt) had medium height (57.63 cm) and spread (62.66 cm) of plants. It exhibited 11.73 number of sprays per plant and 25.33 flowers per spray. The total number of flowers was reported to be 283.46 per plant. On the other hand, the length of spray was observed as 48.46 cm. Autumn Joy had pink decorative flowers with creamy yellow centre. It took 101.26 days for flowering (from transplanting) and was an early bloomer with long duration of flowering (35.81 days). The size and weight of flowers was reported to be 6.60 cm and 3.90 g, respectively.