Evaluation of chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat) genotypes for commercial cultivation in hilly areas of Himachal Pradesh

Abstract

An experiment was conducted on evaluation of chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat) genotypes for commercial cultivation in hilly areas of Himachal Pradesh at the Experimental Farm of Department of Floriculture and Landscape Architecture, Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan. Four genotypes, namely ‘Pusa Shwet’, ‘TQP’, ‘UHFSChr 125’ and ‘UHFSChr 117’ were evaluated for cut flower production, while genotypes ‘UHFSChr 122’, ‘UHFSChr 132’, ‘Punjab Shringar’ and ‘DFR-C-1’ were assessed for loose flower production. The results indicated that for cut flower production, ‘UHFSChr 117’ bearing Yellow (12 A) color, with a stem length of 62.3 cm, 5.2 cut stems per plant and a vase life of 12.0 days and ‘UHFSChr 125’ of the Red Purple Group (12 A), with 5.61 cut stems per plant, a stem length of 44.8 cm and a vase life of 10.8 days were recommended. For loose flower production, ‘UHFSChr 132’, with purple (73 A) color, double-type flowers with a diameter of 5.9 cm was found suitable. It produced the maximum number of flowers (257.8), yielded 727.0 g/m², required 118.4 days to flower and had a flowering duration of 35.08 days and a shelf life of 3.9 days.