Browsing by Author "Raja, Adil Usman"
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ThesisItem Open Access Effect of nutrient sprays on growth, flowering and corm production in gladiolus(SKUAST-K, 2017) Raja, Adil Usman; Rather, Zahoor AhmedThe study entitled “Effect of Nutrient Sprays on Growth, Flowering and Corm Production in Gladiolus” carried out at Research Field of Division of Floriculture and Landscape Architecture, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Shalimar Campus during 2015 comprised of two experiments. In both the experiments seven treatment sprays, replicated thrice in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) were applied on two genotypes of gladiolus viz. Pink Friendship and Mon Amur. Spray treatments included; T1 (water spray as control), T2 (urea 0.5%), T3 (urea 1.0%), T4 (urea 1.5%), T5 (urea 0.5% + Micronutrients), T6 (urea 1.0% + Micronutrients) and T7 (urea 1.5% + Micronutrients). Experiment I was conducted to evaluate the influence of nutrient sprays on growth, flowering and corm production in vegetative corm of gladiolus. The study of the results revealed that, T7 (urea 1.5% + Micronutrients) proved superior to all other treatments and recorded significant improvement in most of the vegetative, flowering and corm growth characteristics. Spraying the plants with T7 (urea 1.5% + Micronutrients) significantly improved plant height (80.44 cm), number of leaves plant -1 (10.50), leaf length (58.35 cm), leaf width (3.11 cm); reduced the number of days taken to spike emergence (79.18), colour break (93.54 days) and first floret opening (94.87 days); increased spike length (87.57 cm), spike diameter (8.98 mm) and number of florets plant-1 (14.92). Nutrient sprays had significant influence on corm production also. Treatment T7 (urea @ 1.5% + Micronutrients) recorded highest number of corms (1.29 plant -1) and cormels (63.90 plant -1); largest corm size (60.09 mm), maximum weight of corms (61.97 g plant -1), cormels (23.55 g plant -1) and propagation coefficient (8.64). Between the two different cultivars under study, Pink Friendship gave superior results than Mon Amur in all parameters like plant height (78.41 cm), number of leaves plant -1 (10.27), leaf length (55.50 cm), leaf width (2.85 cm), reduced number of days taken to spike emergence (80.15), colour break (95.87 days) and first floret opening (96.66 days); increased spike length (82.96 cm) , spike diameter (8.42 mm) and number of florets plant-1 (14.13); yielded maximum number of corms (1.07 plant -1), cormels (58.35 plant -1), corm size (59.77 mm), weight of main corm (61.04 g plant -1) and weight of cormels (21.66 g plant -1 ) and propagation coefficient (8.66). Experiment II was conducted to evaluate the influence of nutrient sprays on growth and corm production in half corms of gladiolus. Results obtained during the study revealed that urea and micronutrient sprays had significant positive influence on plant growth and corm production. There was linear increase in the value of various growth and corm production parameters with the increase in urea concentration in sprays. All these characters further improved, when urea sprays were supplemented with micronutrient sprays. Treatment comprising of urea 1.5% and micronutrients (T7) proved superior to all other treatments and recorded maximum plant height (73.30 cm), number of leaves plant -1 (9.52), leaf length (54.55 cm), leaf width (2.21 cm) and reduced the number of days taken to spike emergence (86.08). This treatment significantly improved corm production parameters recording maximum values for number of cormels (18.35 plant -1), size of main corm (50.26 mm), weight of main corm (51.77 g plant -1) and weight of cormels (6.90 g plant -1) and propagation coefficient (5.37). Between the two different cultivars under study, Pink Friendship gave superior results than Mon Amur in all parameters like plant height (70.84 cm), number of leaves plant -1 (9.02), leaf length (50.06 cm), leaf width (2.23 cm), reduced number of days taken to spike emergence (87.95), maximum number of cormels (15.90), size of main corm (46.77 mm), weight of main corm (49.19 g plant -1), weight of cormels (6.16 g plant -1) and propagation coefficient (4.94). Based on the results obtained during the present study, it can be concluded that foliar sprays of nutrients (urea 1.5% + Micronutrients) had a significant positive effect on all growth, flowering and bulb production parameter in gladiolus. With respect to performance of cultivars under study, Pink Friendship yielded better results than the Mon Amur.