Effect of Planting Time on Growth, Flowering and Seed Yield in Dianthus barbatus L.

The present study was carried out to elucidate the effect of different planting dates on growth, flowering and seed production of Sweet william (Dianthus barbatus L.) during 2010–2012. Six plantings were done at an interval of 15 days starting from September 17 in both years. Plantings dates were; September 17, October 2, October 17, November 1, November 16 and December 1. The results showed that different planting dates have significant influence on vegetative, flower and seed yield characters. September 17 planting resulted in improvement of all the attributes including increased plant height (63.54 cm), plant spread (33.32 cm), stem length (56.30 cm), earliest flowering (71.15 days), duration of flowering (41.98 days), number of flowers per stem (central and side; 109.42 and 27.58), number of capsules per plant (373.75), number of seeds per capsule (40.85), 1,000 seed weight (0.90 g) and seed yield per plant (10.75 g). It is suggested that proper planting date reduce the production cost by reducing the crop time and also produce elite flowers with increased market value.