Impacts of Compost, Biofertilizer and/or Some Antioxidant Treatments on Gladiolus (Gladiolus Grandifloras) A. Vegetative Growth and Flowering Aspects

Abstract

A field experiment was carried out during two successive seasons of 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 at the Nursery of Ornamental plants, Faculty of Agriculture, Mania University. The aim of this study was to investigate impacts of compost at four levels (0, 5, 10 and 15 ton/fed) in combination with Microbein biofertilizer (M.B.) at 50 ml/plant and/or some antioxidant treatments (salicylic and ascorbic acids) on vegetative growth and flowering of Gladiolus grandiflorus var. Jester plants. Results showed that vegetative growth and flowering parameters of leaf length (cm), number of leaves/plant, leaves dry weight/plant (g), length of spike (cm), spike diameter (mm), spike fresh weight (g), number of florets/spike, lower floret diameter (cm) and lower floret fresh weight (g) were gradually increased with significant differences by increasing levels of compost. In addition, Microbein biofertilizer (M.B.) and/or some antioxidant (salicylic and ascorbic acids) treatments significantly increased all vegetative growth and flowering parameters in comparison with control treatment. Microbein biofertilizer plus salicylic acid and ascorbic acid were more effective in this concern. It was found also that the use of compost (15 ton/fed) in combination with Microbein biofertilizer plus salicylic acid plus ascorbic acid followed by 15 ton/fed with M.B. plus ascorbic acid then 10 ton/fed with M.B. plus salicylic acid plus ascorbic acid noticeably improved different vegetative growth characters and flowering parameters of gladiolus plants. As the most important characters for the quality of gladiolus, the largest length of spike (season one 65.76 cm and season two 65.76 cm), largest number of florets/spike (season one 11.65 and season two 11.98) and the highest lower floret diameter (season one 7.79 cm and season two 8.34 cm) were achieved with compost (15 ton/fed) in combination with Microbein biofertilizer plus salicylic acid plus ascorbic acid. From the results of this study, it could be concluded that adaptability of gladiolus corms of Jester variety (Gladiolus gradiflorus) to the Egyptian environmental conditions is confirmed.

Effect of Compost and Some Stimultory Substances on Gladiolus Plant B. Corms and Cormels Productivity and Chemical Composition

“…These results are in agreement with those obtained by Abdou et al (2013), Khalil (2015), Abdou et al (2018) and Hassan and Abd El-Azeim (2020) on gladiolus plants and Mirkalae et al (2013) on Easter lily plants.…”

“…Many authors concluded that amino acids enhanced chlorophyll, such as, Abd El-Aziz et al (2009), Sewedan et al (2012) and Hassan (2016) on gladiolus plants also, Ahmed (2013), on gladiolus, reported that the photosynthetic pigments were increased with active yeast. The stimulatory effect of biofertilizers on photosynthetic pigments was observed by El-Sayed (2004) and Hassan and Abd El-Azeim (2020). Hassan (2016), on gladiolus plants, mentioned that seaweed treatment increased photosynthetic pigments.…”

“…Corm and cormel traits i.e. corm diameter, fresh and dry weights of corm, cormels number, fresh and dry weights/cormel and number of contractile root per corm, as well as, the three photosynthetic pigments (chlorophyll a, b and carotenoids contents) and of N, P and K % in the leaves and corms were increased due to fertilizing gladiolus plants with compost reported by Ruppenthal and Castro (2005), Chandar et al (2012), Ahmed (2013), Abdou and Ibrahim (2015), Hassan (2016), Tirkey et al (2017), Baruati et al (2018); Beck et al (2019), Karagöz et al (2019) and Hassan and Abd El-Azeim (2020).…”

“…Many authors evaluated the effect of biofertilizer such as, El-Sayed (2004), Taha and Hassan (2008), Abdou and Ibrahim (2015), Mazhar and Eid (2016), Sathyanarayana et al (2018) and Hassan and Abd El-Azeim (2020) on gladiolus and Attia et al, (2018) on tuberose plants. Hassan (2016) on gladiolus and Afifpour and Kosh-Khui (2015) on Polianthes tuberosa found that amino acids have positive effect on N, P and K %.…”

“…The impact of stimulatory substances on enhancing corms and cormels production, as well as, the photosynthetic pigments and some nutrients (N, P and K % ) of gladiolus plant was emphasized by Hassan (2016) on gladiolus plants regarding seaweeds extract; Abd El-Aziz et al (2009), Sewedan et al (2012) and Hashish et al (2015), Hassan (2016) and Khattab et al (2016) on gladiolus plants concerning amino acids; furthermore, Abd El-Aziz et al (2009), Abo Leila and Eid (2011), Abdou and Ibrahim (2015), Khalil (2015), Ahmed (2019) and Abdou et al (2019), on gladiolus, showed that all corm and cormels productivity were increased with ascorbic acid treatment; Sajjad et al (2014), Padmalatha et al (2014), Khalil (2015), Pawar et al (2018), Tamrakar et al (2018) and Hassan and Abd El-Azeim (2020) revealed that corms and cormels production of gladiolus were increased as a result of fertilizing plants with salicylic acid. Also, Fawzy et al (2012), Ahmed (2013) and Abdou and Ibrahim (2015), on gladiolus, indicated that active yeast increased corm diameter and corm fresh and dry weights, number of cormels/plant and cormels fresh and dry weights, as well as N, P and K % Abdou et al (2004), El-Sayed (2004 and El-Deeb (2016) on gladiolus plants concerning N-fixing bacteria.…”