Abstract:

The paper aims to study the impacts of calcium supply with varying concentrations on the vegetative and reproductive growth of aloe plants and explore the possibility of increasing the artificially cultivated varieties of aloe plants to meet the market demand of raw materials. This study took the multifunctional plant Aloe saponaria as the research object, adopted the planting method of mixed substances + nutrient solution, set up 13 different experimental treatments with calcium supply with varying concentrations in collaboration with the modified Hoagland nutrient solution, artificially cultivated A. saponaria for 4 months, and determined the external morphological growth data, plant production data and reproductive production data. The study results showed that except the data of root length, leaf number, tiller number and pedicel number, other determined data including plant height, leaf thickness, maximum leaf area, total biomass, aboveground biomass, underground biomass, reproductive organ biomass, pedicel height, capsule number and seed number all reached the maximum value in the 110% calcium experimental treatment; the secondary maximum values appeared in the experimental treatment of 100% and 120% calcium concentrations; and in the two calcium concentration experimental treatments of 0% and 500%, all the above measured data were the smallest. The experimental biomass data showed that the biomass of aboveground organs accounted for the largest proportion, followed by reproductive organs, and the biomass of underground organs was the smallest. This study has fully demonstrated that A. saponaria belongs to calcicolous plants, the formula of Hoagland nutrient solution with Ca²⁺ concentration at 11 mmol/L is the most suitable for its plant growth and development.

Key words: Aloe saponaria, mixed substances, calcium mineral nutrient, vegetative growth, reproductive growth, biomass allocation, calcicolous plant