Effect of spacing and corm size on growth and spike production of gladiolus

Gladiolus is high demandable and popular flower all over the world. The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of plant spacing and corm size on growth and spike production of gladiolus. The two factor experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD). Three plant spacing like S1= 25×20 cm, S2= 20×30 cm and S3= 25×30 cm and corm size like L1=Small corm, (30±2 g), L2=Medium corm (35±2 g), L3=Large corm (>40g) were maintained to investigate the study. Plant spacing and corm size had significant effect on days to 80% emergence, plant height, number of leaves, days required for first spike initiation, spike length, rachis length, number of florets per spike and weight of spike. The highest number of plant height (74.61 cm), maximum number of leaves (7.98), top most length of spike (70.00), utmost rachis length (48.77 cm), largest number of florets per spike (14.33) and maximum weight of spike (35.60) were obtained from the plant spacing 25x30cm and largest corm size > 40g. Therefore, the results of the present study revealed that widest plant spacing 25×30 cm and large corm (>40g) were found to be the best for growth of spike production of gladiolus