Effect of corm splitting and GA3 application on growth and flowering of gladiolus cv. ‘Pusa Jyotsna’

A field experiment was carried out at the experimental farm of the Department of Horticulture, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat during the year 2006–07 to ascertain the effect of corm splitting and GA3 application on growth and flowering of gladiolus cv. ‘Pusa Jyotsna’. The experiment was laid down in Factorial Randomized Block Design with 24 treatments replicated thrice. Six corm sizes viz., small whole corms (S1), large and medium corms cut into two pieces (S2 and S3, respectively), large and medium corm cut into three pieces (S4 and S5, respectively) and small corm cut into two pieces (S6), were treated with four different concentrations of GA3 (0, 50, 100 and 200 ppm). Findings revealed that S2 produced significantly greater plant height (117.74 cm), no. of leaves per plant (9.33) and leaf length (69.46 cm). Maximum number of florets per spike (14.72), spike length (105.79 cm) and rachis length (75.52 cm) were also recorded with S2. Both S2 and S3 produced the maximum floret size and vase life. Application of 200 ppm GA3 induces early emergence of shoot (16.77 days), produced maximum number of leaves (9.06) per plant, maximum spike length (92.66 cm) and rachis length (72.25 cm).