A New Spray Chrysanthemum Cultivar, ‘Golden Festival’ with Vigorous Semi-Double Flower of Yellow Petals for Cut Flower

A new spray chrysanthemum cultivar, ‘Golden Festival’ was released by National Horticultural Research Institute (NHRI), Rural Development Administration (RDA), Korea in 2007. It was selected from the progenies of open-pollination of ‘Torbay’ in 2002. Trials were conducted from 2005 to 2007 for evaluation and selection of this cultivar, including shading culture in summer and retarding culture in autumn. The natural flowering time of ‘Golden Festival’ is late October, but year-round flowering is possible by shading and lighting treatment. The cultivar is semi-double type flowers with bright yellow petals and green flower center. Flower neck and stem are very hardy. The diameter of flower is 56.5 mm. The number of flowers per stem and petals per flower are 12.0 and 93.5, respectively. The days to flowering under the short day treatment is about 50 in spring season.