Abstract

Gladiolus (Gladiolus grandiflorus) a member of family Iridaceae, is one of the important cut flower among ornamental crops grown in India. Fusarium wilt or yellows of gladiolus is a common problem which is caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. gladioli. Experiments were carried out during 2009-10 and 2010-11 at Model Floriculture Centre, GBPUA&T, Pantnagar to study the effect of bioagent and cow urine corm treatment on germination and wilt incidence of Gladiolus. The experiment was laid out with six treatments viz., Bavistine @ 0.2%, Thiram @ 0.2%, Copper Oxychloride @ 0.3%, Trichoderma harzianum @ 0.10%, Cow urine @ 0.50% and Untreated Check. Findings of present investigation revealed that the corm treatment of Gladiolus with Trichoderma harzianum had maximum germination (99.00%) as well as minimum incidence of wilt of Gladiolus to (0.76%) followed by Cow urine with germination (98.42%) and disease incidence of (1.56%) respectively, which are statistically at par. Minimum germination (32.12%) and maximum incidence (88.45%) was observed in untreated check. This implies that corm treatment with bio agent and cow urine was good for enhancing the growth of plant hence more yield. The aim of the present study was to reduce the use of chemicals and increase use of biological sources to maintain the soil health, fertility and microbial activity.

Keywords

management, fusarium yellows, gladiolus, cow urine, bioagent, bedding purposes, soil fumigation, death of plants, replications per treatment, growing season, mycelial growth, antifungal effect, synthetic chemicals, disease of Gladiolus