Correlation Studies in Gladiolus

Abstract

A study on the association of various morphological traits through correlation analysisin gladiolus (Gladiolus x hybridus Hort.) showed that spike length had significant positivecorrelation with plant height, rachis length, duration of flowering and number of florets perspike, whereas it had negative correlation with number of shoots per plant, size of the floretand number of corms per plant at both phenotypic and genotypic levels. Number of florets perspike was positively and significantly correlated with number of leaves per plant, rachis length,leaf area, spike length and number and weight of cormels produced per plant at bothphenotypic and genotypic levels. The results of investigation revealed that spike length,number of florets per spike and floret size are important spike quality characters. Hence, thesecharacters may be considered as selection indices in gladiolus breeding programme.