Evaluation of gladiolus (Gladiolus hybridus Hort) cultivars for growth and yield

An experinient was conducted at experimental block of Department of Floriculture and landscape gardening, Kittur Rani Channamma College of Horticulture, Arabhavi to evaluate gladiolus cultivars for vegetative growth and spike yield. All cultivars differed significantly for growth and spike yield. The cultivars Sylvia, American Beauty and Melody were early to sprout (4.33,7.67 and 10.33 days, respectively), while Cv. Magic was late (20.33 days). Cultivars Vedanapoli, American Beauty and Summer Sunshine recorded overall better vegetative growth with respect to plant height, plant girth, number of number of leaves, leaf width and leaf length. Moderate vegetative growth was recorded in cultivars Snow White, Yellow Cup and Melody, while poor vegetative growth was noticed in cultivars Magic and Trust. Among the nine cultivars studied cv. Vedanapoli recorded maximum yield (488333.33 spikes per hectare) followed by Sylvia (445000.00 spikes per hectare) and Melody (266666.67 spikes per hectare) whereas, minimum was recorded in cultivar Summer Sunshine (180000.00 spikes per hectare).