PERFORMANCE OF GERBERA CULTIVARS UNDER PROTECTED CONDITION

Abstract

The present investigation was carried out to study the performance of gerbera cultivars under protected condition at the Floriculture Research Field, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, Gazipur from March, 2014 to May 2015. The experiment was conducted in Randomized Block Design having 8 cultivar of gerbera which were coded V 1 , V 2 , V 3 , V I 4 , V 5 , V 6 , V 7 and V (BARI Gerbera-1) treatments with three replications. Vegetative, flowering and flower characteristics varied significantly among the cultivars. Cultivar V 3 8 produced maximum number of leaves per plant (20.0), plant spread (15.0 cm) and number of suckers per plant (8.0). Days taken to bud visibility and full bloom varied greatly among cultivars under the study. Cultivar V took least number of days, for bud visibility (69.0) and full bloom (81.0) respectively. For flower characteristics, V 3 showed the maximum number of flowers per plant (20) and possessed longest vase life (15.0 days). The largest flower diameter (10.0 cm) was found in V and the smallest was in V 2 (6.5 cm). Weightiest flower stalk was produced by V 3 3 (25.0 g) and lightest was in V 2 (10 g). Longest flower duration was in V (125 g) and shortest duration was in V 2 3 (105 days). Wide variation in flower colour was also observed among the cultivars. Considering the important characteristics, the cultivar V is the best variety while V 6 and V 7 also exhibited acceptable quality. So, V 3, V can be cultivated under protected conditions.