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).