Growth and flowering behaviour of gladiolus (Gladiolus hybrida) hybrid under different plant spacings and corm sizes in midhill areas of Himachal Pradesh

An experiment was conducted to find out the effect of corm size and plant spacings on growth, flowering and corm production in a newly-developed hybrid of gladiolus (Gladiolus hybrida L.) (Hb 1–9). Three corm sizes (3.0–3.5 cm, 3.6–4.0 cm and 4.1–4.5 cm diameter) at three spacings (30 cm × 6, 30 cm × 10 and 30 cm × 14 cm) were tested in a randomized block design replicated thrice. The gladiolus hybrid, Hb1-9, with S₃ and P₃ showed better performance, number of days taken for sprouting (15.27 days), duration of flowering (12.86 days), weight of spike (53.49 g), plant height (87.75 cm), number of days taken for bud break (100.58 days), number of days taken for first floret opening (104.09 days), size of florets (9.52 cm), spike length (72.96 cm), size of corm/plant (4.73 cm), number of corms/plant (1.49), number of cormels (30.16) and days taken to harvesting stage (102.05).