Evaluation of Chrysanthemum cultivars for pot mums

Abstract

Twelve varieties of Chrysanthemum, namely Bidhan Madhuri, Bidhan Purna, HYDC-2, HYDC-4, HYDC-8, Plants and Seeds Choice, Red Gold, Red Stone, Shova, Silper White, Silper Yellow, Bidhan Swapna were evaluated with the aim to identify suitable cultivar for pot mum under Hyderabad conditions during the year 2018-2019 at Floricultural Research Station, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad. The results revealed that in the flowering parameters, the cultivars Red Gold (41.60 days) recorded minimum days for visible flower bud formation whereas, cultivar Silper White (91.00 days) was late to form flower buds. Number of days taken for 50 percent flowering varied from 81.40 days (Red Gold) to 97.8 days (Bidhan Madhuri). Among all cultivars the number of days from planting to flowering was earlier in Bidhan Purna (92.47 days) and number of flowers per plant ranged from Silper White (6.33) to HYDC-2 (23.07). Cultivars HYDC-2 (23.07), HYDC-4 (20.27), Red Stone (19.25), Bidhan Madhuri (17.87) and Red Gold (16.27) recorded appreciable number of flowers.Among the quality attributes, flower diameter ranged from 2.75 cm (Plants and seeds choice ) to 6.35 (Silper White), number of ray florets ranged from 42.00 (HYDC-8) to 255.93 (Red Stone) and duration of flowering ranged from 14.13 days (HYDC-4) to 24.73 days (Bidhan Swapna) and flower longevity on plant ranged from 13.60 days ( Bidhan Purna) to 24.87 days (Bidhan Madhuri). Based on the flowering attributes the highest pot presentability score was observed in HYDC-2 (54 out of 60) followed by Red Stone (51 out of 60) and Red Gold (50.33 out of 60).