Abstract
Corm and cormel production of gladiolus has major role in the growth and development of gladiolus industry.
However, its commercial cultivation is mainly limited by rare production of corms and cormels and thereby does
not fulfill local demand of the countries. A field experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of corm size on
the vegetative and floral attributes and corm and cormel production in gladiolus. The main objective of the present
study was to find out the best corm size on the basis of both corm diameter and weight in order to standardize
conventional method of propagation for producing more corms and cormels. For this purpose, corms of three
commercially grown varieties viz. Traderhorn, White Friendship and Peter Pears of three different sizes- small,
(dia. 2.2-2.4 cm), medium (dia. 2.7-3.0 cm) and large (dia. 3.2-3.5 cm) were planted in split plot design
consecutively for two years, i.e., 2006 and 2007. Large sized corms significantly increased the leaf breadth,
length of flowering spike, and number of florets spike-1 over those produced from small and medium sized ones,
whereas plant height was greatly decreased in response to large sized corms. Regarding corm production, large
sized corms produced significantly higher weight of corms plant-1, cormels plant-1 and combined total weight of
corms and cormels plant-1 in all the three varieties of gladiolus. However, variety wise Peter Pears got the best
results. The yield of new corms plant-1 was significantly increased in response to large sized corms both in White
Friendship and Peter Pears, whereas, Traderhorn had no effect of corm size for number of corms plant-1. Cormel
production also depicted significant results in response to large sized corms in all the three varieties of gladiolus.
All obtained corms and cormels were graded on the basis of diameter into large as well as small sized corms
when categorized according to the standards of North American Gladiolus Council.
