ABSTRACT
Prior to 1975 the promotion of flowering for commercially important conifers within the Pinaceae family was limited to traditional cultural practices, of which water stress, root-pruning, N fertilizing, girdling, and high temperature were most commonly employed. 28 , 29a , 46 , 64a However, these techniques were usually only effective on older trees that had already begun to flower naturally; even then successful increases in seed and pollen cones were sporadic and subject to the vagaries of nature. GA3, which had been found to promote profuse flowering even in very young seedlings of conifers within the Cupressaceae and Taxodiaceae, 28 , 43 , 52 did not seem to work on conifers of the Pinaceae family. 43 , 52 Why this should be so was a perplexing question, for members of all three families were known to respond to similar cultural treatments.
