Influence of cormel size and plant spacing on corm production of gladiolus

The study was conducted at the Floriculture Research Field, Horticulture Research Centre, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), Gazipur, during November 2006 to May 2008 to find out the optimum cormel size and plant spacing for producing quality corm and cormel production and their effect on next year flower production. The big sized cormel (1.8-2.1 cm in diameter and 4 ± 0.5 g in weight) coupled with the closest plant spacing (5 cm) produced the highest number of corms plot' (136), corm yield plot' (1900 g) and also ha' (5.08 t). It also produced the maximum number and weight of cormel plot' (987 and 1117 g, respectively) and cormel yield ha' (2.99 t). The highest cormel weight of individual plant was recorded in the treatment combination of big sized cormel and widest spacing (15 cm) which also produced the maximum percentage of large and medium grades cormel (5.03% and 94.03%, respectively). When corms were planted in the next year, the large sized cormels with the widest spacing showed better performance in respect of florets spike(13.49), the longest spike (82.80 cm) and the heaviest flower stick (67.67 g). However, big sized cormel with the closest spacing is suggested for corm production of gladiolus.