Effect Of Calcium On Gladiolus

Gladiolus botanically known as Gladiolus grandiflorus L. belongs to the family Iridaceae. It is also an important cut flower for its long lasting spikes. Calcium is an essential plant nutrient as the divalent cation is required for structural roles in the cell wall and membranes, as a counter- cation for inorganic and organic anions in vacuole, and as an intracellular messenger in the cytosol. Calcium is the chief constituent of plants as calcium pectate of middle lamella of cell wall and is therefore an important part of plant structure and involved in formation of cell membrane. Nitrogen-use efficiency of urea-containing fertilizers is also increased with soluble calcium sources such as calcium nitrate. Moreover, increased calcium uptake reduces the invasion of cell wall by fungal pathogens and deficiency of calcium results in topple disorder by which spikes break down when kept in vase. The study indicated that calcium nitrate concentrations compared to calcium carbonate and distilled water as control had significantly influenced on the vegetative growth, flowering, corm and cormel parameters. However calcium nitrate shows best performance when comparing with other treatments.

A.Raja Gopala Reddy, Department of Floriculture And Landscaping, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Kolkata, WestBengal, India.