Abstract:
Investigation on the effect of mixed cropping of two famous cut-flowers namely, Gladiolus grandiflorus Hort. and Narcissus papyraceus Ker-Gawl. on various agronomic characters and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) colonization was carried out. Five varieties of Gladiolus viz. Pricella, Fado, Blues, Victor Brogy and Chinon were sown in 3 × 5 m2 field plots with inter plant distance of 7 cm. Narcissus bulbs were sown in between the two Gladiolus corms. For comparison, bulbs of Gladiolus varieties and N. papyraceus were also sown in monocultures with inter plant distance of 7 cm. In general, mixed cropping with Narcissus increased root length and corm weights in Gladiolus varieties while exhibited no pronounced effect on days to sprouting and spike emergence, shoot and spike length, number of flowers and corm size. Except for reduction in root length of Narcissus due to mixed cropping with Victor Brogy, the effect of mixed cropping with different varieties of Gladiolus had no effect on various vegetative and reproductive growth parameters of Narcissus. In general, mycorrhizal colonization was significantly higher in mixed cropped Gladiolus as well as Narcissus plants than corresponding mono cultivated plants. The effect of mixed cropping on mycorrhizal colonization was more pronounced in Narcissus than in Gladiolus. The mixed cropping of Gladiolus and Narcissus increase mycorrhizal colonization in both the cut-flowers
