I planted a sunflower two months ago for a school experiment, and only one of the sunflowers bloomed the other day -- it was the plant that was planted together in a plot with Vietnam Rose (Portulaca grandiflora). As for the other others that were planted alone, they haven't bloomed, but there are 2-5 sunflowers that are soon to bloom in each of the single plants, while only a single flower bloomed in that which was planted with the rose.
I'm wondering could the sunflower with the rose have bloomed early because of the competitive environment? Or could it have been pure coincidence?
Good hypothesis to test out with bigher sample sIze, Eureka. I know from experience stresses such as pruning excessively in legumes can induce early flowering. Also, I have previously transplanted some sunflower seedlings of same age in soft soil and hard soil around my garden and found that the ones in hard soil are shorter and flower faster, with small blooms.
it sounds that you mean competition between different plants as neighbours. and not so much the same plants but in different soil.
There is a book or might be several already which examine the correlation of trees from diff. species but growing next to one another. And sort of talking to one another. that means: they grow differently compared to be on their own.
its not exactly competiton...
I think early flowering in plants in similar cases depends on some factors such as stresses like heat. hard soils and so on.
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