Growth and Corm Production of Gladiolus grandiflorus L. ‘Essential’ Under Different NPK Regimes

Gladiolus is very popular and highly demanded cut flower worldwide however imbalance nutrition reduces its production, additionally irrational combination of nutrient further kindled the situation. The current study was conducted to ascertain the effects of different combinations of N, P and K on growth, floral development, and N, P and K uptake by gladiolus leaves. N, P and K was applied as; whole NPK (10: 20: 10 g m-2), N (20 g m-2), P (10 g m-2), K (10 g m-2), N+P (20: 10 g m-2), N+K (20: 10 g m-2), P+K (10:10 g m-2). Among treatments, better growth in term of higher sprouting percentage, plant height, leaf area was observed under whole NPK application while stem length and spike length was significantly higher under P+K. Further, we found whole NPK application resulted in higher floret fresh and dry weight whereas maximum floret diameter was under P+K. We found that K played significant role in the floret development while P was important for attaining higher corm weight. Higher leaf chlorophyll contents and N uptake was under whole NPK application. Alone P application showed maximum P uptake and higher K uptake was under P+K treatment. Our results concluded that balanced fertilization (NPK) is better for sustainable gladiolus production.