Performance Evaluation of Gladiolus Varieties under Diverse Climatic Conditions

Crop production is inherently sensitive to climatic variations. Flowers have been admired and used by human to beautify their environment, and also as objects of romance, ritual, religion, medicine and as a source of food. Gladiolus (Gladiolus grandiflorus Andrews; family Iridaceae) is an important bulbous cut flower grown all over the world. The present study was carried out to check the growth and development of three cultivars of Gladiolus under different ecological conditions. As far as vegetative results are concerned early germination was observed at Faisalabad plantation, maximum plant height was observed at Rawalakot. Floral characteristics such as number of florets, diameter of florets, fresh and dry weight of spike were the best at Rawalakot plantation. Parameters such as corm weight, corm diameter, number of cormels and their weight were also favoured by Rawalkot climatic conditions. The temperature remained a critical factor for growth and production, early germination was observed at 26.5˚C at Faisalabad whereas ideal average temperature for vegetative, flowering and corm growth was 23.18˚C at Rawalakot plantation.