Pineapple trick inspires winter-flowering plumeria

malamalama - The Magazine of the University of Hawaii system

Published May 01, 2005

Pineapple trick inspires winter-flowering plumeria

Winter visitors to Hawaiʻi are often met with a quintessential greeting of aloha, a plumeria lei… from Thailand? The fragrant lei flowers are imported because few Hawaiʻi plumeria blossom in the decreasing periods of daylight during fall and winter.

Horticulturist Richard Criley of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources has a solution. A chemical used by the pineapple industry to stimulate flowering and uniform ripening is applied to the plumeria tree in September and October. Foliage falls off, leaving the tree unable to respond to shortening days. Warm nights, generally above 65 degrees, spur the plants to regrow, producing flowers of the same size and quality as those normally produced in the spring.

http://www.hawaii.edu/malamalama/2005/05/researchnews.html#plumeria