Effect of Plant Density, Planting Methods and Mulching on Floral and Cormal Parameters in Gladiolus (gladiolus Hybridus l.)

The experiments was conducted to study the effect of plant density, planting methods and mulching on floral and cormal parameters in Gladiolus (Gladiolus hybridus L) cv. American Beauty during both Kharif and Rabi seasons of 2007-08 and 2008-09. The experiments consisted of eight treatments with three replications, respectively were carried out by Randomized Complete Block Design. Days taken for spike emergence and first flower bud opening on the spike was, significantly less number of days (50.26 days) in T7 (40x20 cm, paired row mulching) followed by T1, T3, T5 (50.73, 51.27 and 51.63, respectively). The number of florets produced per spike, flower weight, flower yield per spike flower, yield per hectare recorded maximum in mulched plots with 30x20 spacing. There was increase in number of florets per spike, floret weight, floret yield per plot and per hectare was due to mulched plants i.e. T1, T3, T5 and T7 with single and paired row in both Kharif and Rabi season. The mulched plants like T1, T3, T5 and T7 with single row and paired row treatments showed significantly more number of corms, weight of corms, cormel number and cormel weight in mulched plots in both Kharif and Rabi seasons, respectively.