Evaluation of Gladiolus (Gladiolus grandiflorus L.) Hybrids under Temperate Conditions of Kashmir Valley

An experiment was carried out during winter season of 2013–14 at the Research Farm of AICRP on Floriculture, Regional Research Station, Sher-e-Kashmir university of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir to evaluate the performance of 10 gladiolus hybrids for cut flower and corm production. The vegetative and flowering characters as well as corm and cormel characters showed significant differences amongst the studied hybrids. The maximum percent of corm sprouting (90.33%) was recorded in SK-96-4/6 and minimum days taken to flowering were exhibited by SK-96-4/4 (85.66 days). Maximum bloom period was noticed in SK-96-5/3 (16.66 days) and the hybrids SK-96-5/1 and SK-96-4/16 showed significantly highest plant height (127.33 cm each). Same hybrid viz SK-96-4/16 exhibited maximum spike length (109.25 cm) and number of florets per spike (18.50). Maximum vase life in plain water was displayed by SK-96-4/16, SK-96-5/6 and SK-96-8/1 (7.33 days each). With regard to the yield parameters, the hybrid SK-96-4/16 showed highest with 28.00) yield of spikes per plant per square meter, corm production (1.30 per plant) and yield of cormels per plant (30.0 g).