KEISAM PRADEEP, K. MANIVANNAN 1 AND S. RAMESH KUMAR 1

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1 AJH eissn X RESEARCH PAPER THE ASIAN JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE Volume 9 Issue 2 Dec., Visit us - DOI : /HAS/TAJH/9.2/ Article history : Received : Revised : Accepted : Effect of organic nutrients on growth, flowering and yield of Gladiolus grandiflorus L. Members of the Research Forum Associated Authors: Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Annamalai University, ANNAMALAI NAGAR (T.N.) INDIA manihort@yahoo.co.in, rameshflora@yahoo.com Author for correspondence : KEISAM PRADEEP Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Annamalai University, ANNAMALAI NAGAR (T.N.) INDIA keisampradeep@gmail.com KEISAM PRADEEP, K. MANIVANNAN 1 AND S. RAMESH KUMAR 1 ABSTRACT : The present study was laid out in RBD with three replications. Various organic fertilizers viz., farm yard manure 7.5 t ha -1, leaf mould 7.5 t ha -1, vermicompost 2.5 t ha -1, humic acid 0.2 per cent (FS), VAM and inorganic fertilizer (RDF 100:50:150 NPK kg ha -1 ) were applied. The growth and yield parameters were studied at different stages of crop growth. The study revealed that the growth characters viz., plant height, at 30 and 45 DAP, number of leaves, leaf length, leaf width and days taken for sixth leaf stage were significantly influenced by the application of organic fertilizers T t ha -1 + VAM + humic 0.2 % (FS)] registered the maximum plant height (73.66 cm and cm) at 30 and 45 DAP, respectively, number of leaves (5.60), leaf length (50.03 cm), leaf width (8.62 cm) and minimum days taken for sixth leaf stage (37.10) were recorded. Flowering characters like minimum days taken for first spike emergence (44.10), days taken for first flower to open (51.35) and maximum spike length ( cm), rachis length (44.20 cm), number of florets per spike (11.40), flower weight (4.99 g) and the number of marketable spike per plot (50.45) were also recorded in T 9. The above treatment also recorded longer vase life (12.66 days). From the above experiment, it may be judged that, the application of 2.5 t ha -1 + VAM + humic 0.2 per cent (FS) enhanced the growth, flowering and yield of gladiolus. KEY WORDS : Humic acid, Vermicompost, VAM(Vesicular arbuscular mycorrhizae), FYM, Gladiuolus HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE : Pradeep, Keisam, Manivannan, K. and Kumar, S. Ramesh (2014). Effect of organic nutrients on growth, flowering and yield of Gladiolus grandiflorus L. Asian J. Hort., 9(2) : Gladiolus (Gladiolus grandiflorus L.) belongs to the family Iridaceae and native of Africa and Asia Minor is a very popular bulbous flowering plant. It is a leading cut flower of India as well as of the world. Gladiolus is very much liked for its majestic spikes which contain attractive, elegant and delicate florets and mainly used for garden and interior decoration and for making bouquets. These florets open in sequence over longer duration and hence have a good keeping quality of cut spikes. It was introduced in India during th century by the British and it has been naturalized in different parts of the country. The modern crop production technology lays a stress on the need of integrated nutrient management which embraces judicial combination of organic, inorganic and biofertilizers. Biofertilizers or more appropriately called microbial inoculants are the preparation containing live or latent cells of efficient strain of microorganisms. These may be biological nitrogen fixers, P- solubilising, mineralisation of nitrogen and transformation of several elements like sulphur and iron into available forms. Continuous use of the biofertilizers results in gradual build up of their population in the soil which on many occasions lead to the stabilization of their effect even in the absence of fresh inoculation (Goyal, 1991). Application of organic nutrients in soil as well as in foliar form has significantly influenced the plant growth (Anburani and Gayathiri, 2009). Application of humic substances tend to increase the respiration rate, metabolism rate and growth of plants as reported by Schnitzer and Khan (1972). Since not much work has been done on individual and combined action of organic and biofertilizer on growth, development and yield of gladiolus, a research work has been envisaged with the objectives to study the effect of vermicompost, humic acid and VAM, on growth and yield in gladiolus. HIND AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AND TRAINING INSTITUTE

2 KEISAM PRADEEP, K. MANIVANNAN AND S. RAMESH KUMAR RESEARCH METHODS The present study was carried out in the Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Annamalai University, Annamalainagar, Tamil Nadu, India during The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design with three replications. Various organic nutrients viz., farm yard manure 7.5 t ha -1, leaf mould 7.5 t ha -1, vermicompost 2.5 t ha -1, humic acid 0.2 per cent, foliar spray (FS), VAM and inorganic fertilizer (RDF 100:50:150 NPK kg ha -1 ) were utilized to formulate eleven treatment combinations. The influence of the above treatment was recorded on vegetative growth, flower quality parameters and yield parameters. RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION The results obtained from the present investigation are summarized below : Vegetative growth : The data presented in Table 1, clearly indicated that plant height, number of leaves, leaf length, leaf width and days taken for sixth leaf stage were greatly influenced by different combinations of organic and inorganic fertilizers. T t ha -1 + humic 0.2 % (FS) + VAM) recorded maximum plant height (73.66 cm and cm at 30 and 45 DAP, respectively), number of leaves (5.60), leaf length (50.03 cm) and leaf width (8.626 cm), than all the other treatment combinations tried. The number of days taken for attaining sixth leaf stage was observed significantly early in the above treatment (37.10 days). Due to nutrient availability in the soil might increased by the application of VAM in the above treatment which ultimately leads to boost the vegetative phase of the crop. These results are in agreement with the results obtained by Baldotto and Baldotto (2013) in gladiolus. They found that humic acid application greatly improved biometric characteristics of gladiolus on account of its effect on photosynthetic activity, N metabolism and protein synthesis. This might be due to the fact that, humic acid improving physical properties of soil, it promotes good soil structure, thereby improves tilth, aeration and moisture retention. These results may be due to the role of humic acid as a nutrient supplement which increased the soil fertility and increased the availability of nutrient elements as reported by David et al. (1994). Chen and Avaid (1990) reported that humic substances have very pronounced influence on the growth of plant roots and enhance root initiation which is a known root stimulator. Humic acid provides carbon as an energy source to nitrogen fixing bacteria and this provides its biological function (Virgine, 2003). The above findings also supported by Sandeep et al. (2011). In their findings, the maximum plant height (55.36 cm), plant spread (31.33 cm 2 ) and number of branches were produced with the application of vermicompost + coarse sand + soil (2:2:1) when compared to control in Cosmos. This might be due to the presence of various micronutrients present in VC and it also acts as a chelating agent and regulates the availability of metabolic micronutrients to the plants apart from increasing the plant growth and yield by providing nutrients in the available form (Kale et al., 1987). Enhancement in growth parameters of gladiolus due to the addition of organic nutrient sources in the present experiment is in line with the findings of Prabhatkumar et al. (2003) and Gupta et al. (2004) reported that the application of biofertilizers like VAM, Azospirillum, Phosphate solubilizing bacteria have registered maximum plant height and minimum Table 1 : Effect of organic nutrient treatments on growth parameters of Gladiolus grandiflorus L Plant height No. of leaves Tr. No. Treatments 30 DAP 45 DAP per plant (cm) (cm) Leaf length (cm) Leaf width (cm) Days taken for 6 th leaf stage T t ha T 2 Leaf mould 7.5 t ha T t ha T t ha -1 + VAM T 5 Leaf mould 7.5 t ha -1 + VAM T t ha -1 + VAM T t ha -1 +VAM + Humic 0.2 % T 8 Leaf mould 7.5 t ha -1 + VAM Humic 0.2% T t ha -1 + VAM + Humic 0.2 % T 10 RDF (100:50:150 NPK kg ha -1 ) T 11 Control S.E. ± C.D. (P = 0.05) Asian J. Hort., 9(2) Dec., 2014 :

3 EFFECT OF ORGANIC NUTRIENTS ON GROWTH, FLOWERING & YIELD OF Gladiolus grandiflorus L. number of days to first flowering. This is because, VAM fungi have been known for supplying P from soil (Mosse, 1973), it also assists in uptake of micronutrients such as Zn, Cu, Mn and Fe (Sreenivasa et al., 1993). Flowering parameter : The plants treated with T t ha -1 + humic 0.2 % + VAM) recorded the minimum number of days taken for first spike emergence (44.10 days) and first floret to open (51.35 days) (Table 2). It was also observed that the above treatment had recorded the maximum spike length ( cm), rachis length (44.20 cm), number of florets per spike (11.40 cm) and flower weight (4.99 g). It was followed by T t ha -1 + VAM + humic 0.2 % (FS)]. The least value in these parameters was observed in T 11 (control). Significant increase in the quality parameters of the spikes was observed due to addition of vermicompost, humic acid and VAM fungi. The present study might be attributed by the early spike emergence coupled with increased availability of nutrients in these treatments. Similar influence in the flower characters of different crops was already reported by Azza et al. (2012) with foliar application of humic acid at 2.0 per cent. Enhancement in the growth attributes caused by the application of these organic constituents in T 9 might have increased the carbohydrate accumulation and which in turn would have hastened the spike emergence in the treatment. These finding are in line with Pritam et al. (2010) who inferred that soil amended with 30 per cent vermicompost produced more number of flowers in Marigold (Tagetes erecta L.). The plants were grown in pot culture experiments and the largest flower diameter was produced in soil amended with 40 per cent vermicompost. Further, the beneficial effect of vermicompost might be due to increased soil organic matter and improved physical properties of soil like bulk density and better aggregation (Zebarth et al., 1993). It is also supported by Kaya et al. (2005); Nikbakht et al. (2008) and Baldotto and Baldotto (2013) reported that application of humic acid at higher concentration increased flowering and yield of gerbera and gladiolus. This may be due to the role of humic acid in improving nutrient uptake and increases the spike length and overall flower quality. Similar findings of improving the nutrient uptake especially of N, P and S by the activity of humic acid have also been reported by Atiyeh et al. (2002) and Arancon et al. (2003). Further, it is supported by Hasan and Khan (2004) who reported that applying neem cake along with VAM fungus (Glomus fasciculatum) increased the spike length, number of florets/spike and the floret diameter in gladiolus. Sreenivasa (1986) reasoned that the increase in quality parameters might be due to the role of VAM in increasing the production of several growth promoting substances which influence plant growth and yield positively. Table 2 : Effect of organic nutrient treatments on flowering and yield parameters of G. grandiflorus L Days No. of No. of Days taken taken Spike Rachis Flower No. of No. of Tr. Treatments for 1 st spike for 1 st florets corm length length weight cormels marketable No. per per emergence floret (cm) (cm) (g) per plant spike / plot spike plant to open T t ha T 2 Leaf mould 7.5 t ha T t ha T t ha -1 + VAM T 5 Leaf mould 7.5 t ha -1 + VAM T t ha -1 + VAM T t ha -1 + VAM + Humic 0.2 % T 8 Leaf mould 7.5 t ha -1 + VAM + Humic 0.2% T t ha -1 + VAM + Humic 0.2 % Vase life T 10 RDF (100:50:150 NPK kg ha -1 ) T 11 Control S.E.± C.D. (P = 0.05) Asian J. Hort., 9(2) Dec., 2014 :

4 KEISAM PRADEEP, K. MANIVANNAN AND S. RAMESH KUMAR Yield parameters : The data presented in Table 2, clearly indicated that maximum number of corms and cormels (1.02 and 8.10, respectively) were observed from plants treated with 2.5 t ha -1 + humic 0.2 per cent (FS) + VAM (T 9 ). These results are in line with the finding of Baldotto and Baldotto (2013), who reported that the increased number of cormels per plant might be due the effect of humic acid to make more mineral nutrients available to gladiolus plants or increased microbial population and biologically active metabolites such as plant growth regulators (Doube et al., 1997). When gladiolus was treated with 2.5 t ha -1 + humic 0.2 per cent (FS) + VAM (T 9 ) the highest number of marketable spike per plot (50.45) was observed. Longest vase life was also recorded in the above same treatment (12.66 days). It was followed by T t ha -1 + VAM + humic 0.2 % (FS)]. The least number of marketable spikes per plot and vase life were observed in treatment T 11 (control). This finding is in conformity with the reports of Iftikhar et al. (2013) who observed the highest flower quality stems in plants supplied with three applications of humic acid and NPK. Kaya et al. (2005); Nikbakht et al. (2008) and Baldotto and Baldotto (2013), reported that HA increased flowering and yield of gerbera and gladiolus, when applied at higher concentrations. Enhancement in number of marketable spikes in the treatment with 2.5 t ha -1 + humic 0.2 per cent (FS) + VAM (T 9 ) might be attributed to the enhancement of the quality characters like number of florets per spike and rachis length in this treatment. This could be due to availability of nutrients and increased photosynthetic activity and increased assimilate pa rti tionin g for spi ke devel opm ent ca used by t he application of VC, Humic acid and VAM. Further, Humic acid application greatly improves the biometric characters because, it enhance the micro and macro nutrient uptake and reduce the water evaporation from soil. Kathiresan and Venkatesha (2002) reported the effect of Azospirillum and VAM in combination with N and P on increased florets/spike, rachis length, and vase life comparing to other treatments in gladiolus. Gupta et al. (2004) reported that the application of bio-fertilizers like VAM, Azospirillum, Phosphate solubilizing bacteria have registered maximum plant height, minimum number of days to first flowering, maximum bud and flower size, maximum vase life and maximum cost benefit ratio in carnation. Gangadharan and Gopinath (2000) reported that application of 10 t of vermiconpost ha per cent recommended NPK dose per ha for obtaining higher yield and net return per ha in gladiolus. 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