Vegetative and Floral Traits of Iris Improved by Altered NPK Doses

Iris is very important among cut flowers and has wide range of colours. Thus, production of Iris cut flower on commercial basis can be a good income source for farmers. This study was carried out at the experimental area of Department of Horticulture, PMAS Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi to discover the effect of diverse nutritional levels of NPK fertilizers i.e. T0 (control), T1 (3.0 N, 6.0 P and 3.0 K g/m2), T2 (6.0 N, 12.0 P and 6.0K g/m2) and T3 (12.0 N, 24.0 P and 12.0 K g/m2) for exploring the optimum performance of three Iris cut flower cultivars. Results of the study revealed that on average vegetative and floral traits were best with T1 (3.0 N, 6.0 P and 3.0 K g/m2). Tallest plants, maximum leaf area, maximum numbers of flowers, maximum spike length, maximum size of flowers, maximum fresh and dry weight of flowers were noted from T1 (3.0 N, 6.0 P and 3.0 K g/m2). Whereas, lowest performance of cut flower was noticed under treatment T0.