Abstract
Corm and cormles production has major role in gladiolus industry of the world as well as in Pakistan. However, its commercial production is limited in cold to moderate climatic regions and there is inadequate research from arid regions like Bahawalpur. Keeping this into consideration, six gladiolus cultivars viz. red, pink, white (white Prosperity), orange, dark pink and yellow (Jester) with three corm sizes (i.e. small: dia. 0.5-1.5 cm, medium: 1.5 cm and large: 2 cm) were planted in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) to evaluate their performance in aridlands of Bahawalpur. Statistically, there was significant variation recorded among gladiolus cultivars for number of leaves and leaf area, spike length and number of florets (9.766, 90.137, 37.77 and 13.97 cm2, respectively) in white color glades, whereas, the highest floret diameter (113.66 mm2) was recorded in orange color glades at p <= 0.05. There was significant effect of large size corms on number of leaves and floret diameter (9.4 and 98.18mm2, respectively). Moreover, large and medium sized corms were at par for spike length and number of florets. The highest production of large and small size corms (227) was record in red glades, while the least corms produced in orange colored glades. Moreover, the highest corm weight (93.5 g) was recorded in white colored glades with the highest corm diameter (2.1 cm2) in red glades. The elemental analysis in produced corms indicated that N, P and K contents were the highest (4.35, 0.44 and 1.019%) in white, orange and pink colored glades, respectively. However, Mn contents (239ppm) were highest in red corms. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the selected glades cultivars performed well in arid climate and can be used for commercial production of gladiolus flowers and daughter corms by following standard cultural practices.