Effect of compost and some stimultory substances on gladiolus plant a. vegetative growth and flowering characters

The present study was conducted in 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 seasons in the Nursery and Laboratory of Ornamental Plants, Faculty of Agriculture, Minia University to study the effect of compost (7.5, 10.0 and 12.5 ton/fed) and seven treatments of stimulants i.e. control, seaweeds extract (300 ppm), amino acids (200 ppm), ascorbic acid (100 ppm), salicylic acid (50 ppm), active yeast (5 g/l) and Minia azotein (50 ml/plant), as well as their interaction on vegetative growth and flowering parameters of gladiolus plants. Data resulted that all compost levels increased vegetative growth parameters (leaf length, number of leaves/plant and leaves dry weight), flowering aspects (spike length, spike diameter, spike fresh weight, number of florets/plant, lower floret diameter and single floret fresh weight) comparing with control. Compost at 12.5 ton/fed was the most effective in this concern. All six used treatments of stimulant substances led to significant increase in all previous characters as compared to control, the maximum values were obtained by amino acids, followed by active yeast. The interaction treatments were significant with, the highest values recorded due to compost (12.5 ton/fed) in combination with either amino acids or active yeast