Vol. 12, Issue 6 (2023)

Author(s):
Rinkal Dudhat, Sudha Patil, Tejal Patel and RA Gurjar

Abstract:
The objective of present investigation was to study the effect of different media of storage on gladiolus corms. The whole experiment was arranged with completely randomized design including 12 treatments viz., cold storage (control), cocopeat (100%), sawdust (100%), sand (100%), rice husk (100%), cocopeat + sawdust (50:50), cocopeat + sand (50:50), cocopeat + rice husk (50:50), sawdust + sand (50:50), sawdust + rice husk (50:50), sand + rice husk (50:50) and untreated (absolute control). Various corm parameters of gladiolus were measured before storage to calculate parameters after storage period. Amongst all the treatments, corms stored in cocopeat (T₂) exhibited maximum weight of corm (5.60 g), minimum physiological loss of weight (0.65 g), maximum corm diameter (2.70 cm) and minimum reduction in diameter (0.10 cm). Significantly lowest rotting percentage (12.84%) was observed in corms stored in cold storage (T₁) however, none of the treatments recorded sprouting of corms during storage. Among different treatments of storage media, cocopeat exerted significant impact on physiological loss of weight and diameter reduction while stored in cold storage influenced rotting losses. Therefore, it can be concluded from the present study that use of storage media can increase BCR by reducing the requirement and expenses of cold storage.