The Cultivation of Roses on Soilless Culture

Soilless culture is a plant growing techniques without traditional agricultural soil. in the early 1960s it was used in europe for the first time. soil salinity, poor soil, soil-borne diseases and pests, water shortage, etc. are reasons for making the soilless culture. this technique can be divided in two main groups: substrate culture and hydroponics (liquid) culture. substrate cultures consist of two groups including the organic and inorganic. organic substrates (non inert medium) are peat, coco peat, bark, burn rice husks, etc. rockwool, glasswool, perlite, pumice and volcanic tuff, etc. are also inorganic substrates (inert medium). in hydroponics culture, plants are directly grown in nutrient solution. the most common inert growing medium is rockwool, very popular in northern europe, especially in holland, poland, ukraine, scandinavia and russia, but also south korea and japan. in holland the cultivation of roses on rockwool represents 80% of the total soilless cultivation. among the organic growing medium, coco peat is currently the most common in rose cultivation. it can be used alone, or mixed with growing medium of volcanic origins (pumice, fine volcanic tuff). it has lately become a good alternative to the more expensive inert growing medium (rockwool, perlite). for these reasons it is widely used in many countries around the world, particularly mediterranean countries like italy, france, greece, etc. and among most african countries like kenya and uganda. although it is still largely preferred the traditional rose cultivation in the soil, soilless rose cultivation has been increasing for several advantages in the entire world. in recent years, soilless cut rose cultivation was begun to apply in turkey. in this study, it was informed about the media used in soilless culture, the technical details of the system and the developments in soilless rose cultivation in the world and in turkey.