ABSTRACT

360The field experiment entitled “Effect of Plant Growth Regulators on Growth, Flowering and Corm Production of Gladiolus (Gladiolus grandiflorus) cv. Jester” was planned and conducted during the rabi season of 2014–2015 at the Research Farm of Department of Horticulture at Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture Technology and Sciences (Deemed-to-be-University), Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India, with two plant growth regulators (GA3 and CCC) at different concentrations on growth and spike yield of gladiolus. The experiment consisted of nine treatments with three replications carried out in a randomized block design. The results obtained from the experiment show that the combination of different hormone source of plant growth regulators significantly affected the growth parameters of gladiolus, such as plant height (124.46 cm), number of sprouts (2.75), number of leaves per plant (9.5), days to spike initiation (52.28 days), days to opening of the first florets (8.02 days), first florets durability (10.95 days), spike length (90.62 cm), number of florets/ spike (19.02), number of spike/plant (2.68), spike yield/ha (1,50,000 lakh), corm per plant (2.75), corm per plot (30.65), and corm yield/ha (1,50,002.95 lakh). The spike yield attributes of gladiolus were also influenced significantly by combination of different plant growth regulators. The maximum value of yield and yield attributes parameters, viz., maximum number of spike per plant, spike yield/ha, number of corms/plant, and corm yield/ha was found to be higher under the treatment T2 (GA3 @ 150 ppm) and T6 (CCC @ 750 ppm).