IMPLEMENTATION OF EXPERIMENT ABOUT APICAL BUDS PRUNING TO INCREASE AXILLARY BUDS GROWTH OF TAHUN SPINACH (AMARANTUS HYBRIDUS L.) IN HORTICULTURAL COURSES

There are two purposes of this study, first is to evaluate the effects of apical buds pruning to axillary buds growth and the second is to implement this experiment in Horticultural courses. This study was experimental research, and used randomised design method. The sample was grouped into five groups. The first group was conducted without apical buds pruning (J0) served as the control group, second group (J1), third group (J2), fourth group (J3) and the fifth group (J4) were conducted with apical (topping) buds pruning in 3 cm, 6 cm, 9 cm and 12 cm. There were four times experiments. The data analysis is using ANOVA test. The conclusion is there significant difference in some axillary bud in non-apical buds pruned spinach (J0) and apical buds pruned spinach. The analysis then continued by LSD test or BNT test with the most significant difference was between J0 and J3 (3 cm of pruned apical bud), and the highest number of axillary bud was J1 with 66 on average. The result is that the implementation of this experiment in Horticultural courses is able to increase the activity and creativity of students.