Ruellia 'R10-108'

Summary

UC Davis is located in Davis, California, this site has a silty clay loam soil and plants are irrigated with potable water. More information about the field sites is located in the Nuts & Bolts section.

Ruellia Mayan White is part of the Mayan™ series of Mexican petunia, Ruellia simplex, bred at the University of Florida at Gainesville with the goal of producing sterile cultivars that would not pose a threat of invasiveness by seed dispersal, and would be smaller overall than the species. Mayan White had an even worse spreading habit than observed in Mayan Purple which was trialed at the same time. Winter deciduous, in some cases, the original plant did not resprout and only remote stems emerged in spring. Its leaves also had the most issues early on: they were pale, sometimes splotched, and tended to yellow or scorch at the tip beginning in May and through June. Much of this damage was outgrown in July, but foliage appearance started to decline again by September (Table 15). Plants had no disease problems and only minor foliar damage from leafhoppers and thrips in September and October. The apparent significant differences in ratings between treatments are more attributable to damage from turkeys roaming through the fields, breaking off stem tops. If anything, this cultivar showed slightly better appearance, pest tolerance and flowering on the highest irrigation treatment. The final height and width were 28.3” (71.8cm) and 48.3” (122.6cm), respectively, with no significant differences between treatments.