Abstract:
The present experiment was carried out to study the Performance of gladiolus cultivars under different planting dates for vegetative and floral characters under Chhattisgarh Plains was Horticulture Farm, Department of Horticulture, College of Agriculture, Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur (C.G.). India during
Rabi season 2011-12 and 2012-13. Having four different planting time
s (30
th September, 15
th October, 30
th October, 15
th November) and six gladiolus genotypes (American Beauty, White Prosperity, Candyman, Dull Queen, Her Majesty, and Red Majesty). The field experiments were laid out in Factorial Randomized Block Design with three replications having 24 treatment combinations. Planting of gladiolus on 30
th September (D
1) showed minimum days to 50% sprouting of corms and maximum number of leaves per plant, length and width of leaves. However, maximum plant height, was noted on 30
th October (D
3), Growth characters of gladiolus were significantly enhanced by different cultivars. In case of cultivars, the minimum days to 50% sprouting of corms, length of leaves were noted with cultivar Red Majesty (V
6). However, plant height, number of leaves per plant and width were found maximum with cultivar Candy man (V
3) and was superior to other cultivars. The flower characters
i.e., days to spike emergence, number of spike per plant, spike length, number of florets per spike, were significantly superior in planting on 30
th September (D
1). The cultivar Dull Queen (V
4) was found significantly superior to exhibit the earliest spike emergence, than rest of the other cultivars. The maximum number of spike per plant, spike length, number of florets per spike was found in cultivar Candy man (V
3), which was significantly superior to the rest of cultivars. The interaction between dates of planting and cultivars D
2V
3, D
1V
5, D
1V3, D
2V
2, D
1V
4, D
1V
1, D
1V
3, D
2V
3 show the best result for plant height, number of leaves per plant, length of leaves, width of leaves,
days to spike emergence, number of spike per plant, spike length, number of florets per spike respectively.