Assessment of date of planting, land configuration and plant spacing in geranium under sub-mountaineous region of Punjab

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted at PAU Regional Research Station, Gurdaspur during 2013-14 and 2014- 15 to assess the effect of date of planting, land configuration and plant spacing on the fresh herbage yield and essential oil yield of geranium under sub-mountaineous region of Punjab.The experiment was laid out in split-split plot design having three replications with date of planting of geranium in main plots and land configuration in subplots and plant spacing in sub-sub plots. It consists of three planting dates of geranium plot viz. D1: November 15, D2: November 30, D3: December 15, two land configurations (Bed and Flat planting) in sub-plots and three plant spacing viz. S1:90cm×30cm, S2:90cm×45cm, S3: 90cm×60cm in sub-sub plots. The results indicated that the date of planting, land configuration and plant spacing did not show any significant effect on plant height of geranium at both harvests during both the years of study. The maximum plant spread was observed at D1: November 15, which was statistically at par with D2: November 30 and both these levels significantly higher than that of D3: December 15. Geranium planted on beds attained more plant spread which was significantly higher than that of flat planted plots. The maximum values of plant spread were produced by plant spacing of S3: 90cm×60cm, which was statistically at par with S2:90cm×45cm and these two plant spacing treatments resulted in significantly higher values of plant spread than 90cm×30cm. Significantly the highest herbage yield and essential oil yield were recorded in D1: November 15 which was statistically at par with D2: November 30 and these treatments obtained higher herbage yield and essential oil yield than D3: December 15 at both harvests during both the years of study. Significantly higher fresh herbage yield and essential oil yield in both the harvest were recorded in bed planting than in flat planting among both the harvests of geranium. Among plant spacing, the highest fresh herbage yield and essential oil yield was observed in both the harvest in plant spacing S1: 90cm×30cm, proved significantly superior to S2: S2: 90cm×45cm and S3: 90cm×60cm. The date of planting, land configuration and plant spacing resulted in statistically similar values of oil content of geranium at both harvests during both the years of study.