Vol. 8, Issue 7, Part G (2024)

Abstract: Present study was done at the Horticulture Research Farm, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India during 2023-2024. This experiment was laid in Randomized Block Design with 3 replications. Treatments comprised of various FeSO₄ concentrations such as control (distilled water), FeSO₄ 0.1%, FeSO₄ 0.2%, FeSO₄ 0.3%, FeSO₄ 0.4%, FeSO₄ 0.5%, FeSO₄ 0.6%, FeSO₄ 0.7%, FeSO₄ 0.8%, FeSO₄ 0.9% and FeSO₄ 1.0%. At 3^rd and 6^th leaf stage foliar application of iron was done. Growth parameters which exhibited the best result were found with the application of 0.3% FeSO₄ for plant height (58.30 cm), 0.4% FeSO₄ in case of no. of plants/hill (3.83), no. of leaves/hill (20.37), leaf width (3.07 cm) and scape width (2.86 cm) whereas, 0.6% FeSO₄ showed best result for leaf length (56.98 cm). Flowering parameters showed the best results at 0.4% FeSO₄ for no. of florets/spike (13.34), days to colour show (79.2), no. of opened florets at a time (4.17), spike length (68.24 cm), rachis length (44.18 cm), internodal length (4.87), flowering duration of 1^st (5.62 days) 3^rd (5.50 days), 5^th (5.44 days) and last florets (5.60 days), total flowering duration (16.85 days) and 0.6% FeSO₄ for length of 1^st floret (10.06 cm), 3^rd floret (9.70 cm) and 5^th florets (9.60 cm) respectively. Similarly, corm parameters such as no. of corms/hill exhibited best result at 0.6% FeSO₄ but weight of corms/hill and diameter of corm was found to be performing best at 0.4% FeSO₄.