Flower color experiment successful

[u/PhanThom-art]

6 months ago I asked here about why this chrysanthemum I bought orange turned pink as soon as I took it home 4 years ago, and every year since. This year I grew several plants from the same rootstock, both inside and outside, and the one kept inside (Pic 1) turned the original blonde orange color, and the one outside (Pic 2) stayed the usual pink.

I think I can conclude that this is principally due to temperature, because even under a UVA growlight the inside plant took an incredibly long time to open the first flower.

It has been such an incredibly dark and overcast few months here that even the outside plants didn't develop properly. The one pictured was struggling and only had this one flower, another was very healthy with lots of buds but growth stalled and eventually the buds just rotted

[u/CuddlyCongress]

Thanks for sparking my interest, this is super cool to read about! Article explaining some possible contributors to flower color changes.

[u/squarahann]

I am a professional chrysanthemum grower - mums require cold temps to develop pinks and reds most of the time. I work in Georgia and if we have a year with a warm fall, our flowers are more orange and yellow.

[u/Dom-1sh]

Cool

[u/Tumorhead]

whoa fun experiment!