EFFECT OF PINCHING AND GROWTH PROMOTING CHEMICALS ON GROWTH AND SEED ATTRIBUTES IN VERBENA (Verbena hybrida)

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of pinching and growth promoting chemicals on the growth and seed attributes in verbena flower crop. Specifically, the study aimed to identify the effect of GA3 and salicylic acid at varying concentrations on plant growth and seed yield as well as determine the impact of pinching on these factors. Hence, an experiment was conducted to find out the effect of pinching and growth promoting chemicals on the growth and seed attributes of verbena. Growth promoting chemicals used in the experiment were GA3 and Salicylic Acid (SA) @ 100, 150 and 200 ppm each. The chemicals were foliar sprayed at 21 days after transplanting followed by pinching at 40 days after transplanting. Healthy seedlings were transplanted in plots of size 6 × 3 m with spacing of 60 × 50 cm. The trial was conducted using Randomized Block Design with three replications. in each treatment. The findings suggest that pinching at 40 days after transplanting can significantly improve the growth and seed attributes, where, pinching resulted in significantly greater plant spread, secondary branches, dry weight of leaves, leaf are index, seed yield/shoots and seed yield/plant. Meanwhile, GA3 at 200 ppm produced the highest test weight. The use of SA at 200 ppm also showed promising results in terms of growth and leaf area index in verbena. Present study highlights the positive impact of pinching and growth promoting chemicals at varying concentrations. It also suggests that incorporating pinching and growth promoting chemicals in cultivation of verbena can significantly improve the crop yield and quality. © 2023, Punjab Agricultural University. All rights reserved.