MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS, GROWTH, DEVELOPMENT, AND PRODUCTIVITY OF HIGH-YIELD LOTUS CULTIVATED IN THUA THIEN HUE PROVINCE

Abstract

This paper presents the morphological characteristics, growth, development, and productivity of a high-yield lotus cultivated at Huong So commune, Hue city in the 2018 season. The results showed that the high-yield lotus, originally from Dong Thap, was capable of growing and developing well under natural conditions of Thua Thien Hue. This high-yield lotus demonstrated 17 typical traits such as purple new leaves, red-purple buds, curly pink-purple petals, protruding seedpod with an umbrella shape, spherical lotus seeds. This lotus variety also had several advantages such as rapid growth rate of leaf diameter and plant height. The lifecycle of this lotus variety was 145 days from planting to thefallingof flowers.  The seedpod diameter was big with an average size of 11.52cm, and the number of seeds per seedpod was 29.87. Therefore, this lotus variety hada high yield of 4.57 tons per hectare. As a result, this lotus proved to be a potential replacement for the local lotus varieties, which are degenerating, and to play an important role in economic development and income improvement for farmersin Thua Thien Hue.