Enhancement of Growth, Flowering and Corm Freesia Hybrida Plant via Rice Organic Residue Application and Chelated Zinc Spray

Abstract

A pot trial was conducted to identify the effect of adding rice organic residues (ROR) to the potting soil and spraying chelated zinc (CZn) on the growth, flowering, and corm characteristics of the Freesia hybrida plant. An RCBD experiment was adopted with two factors and three replicates. ROR comprised three levels (0, 4, and 8%), and CZn included three concentrations (0, 20, and 40) mg.L−1. The findings revealed that applying ROR at 8% and spraying CZn at 20 mg.L−1 significantly increased leaf number, shoot dry weight, total chlorophyll content in fresh leaves, and total soluble carbohydrate content in dry leaves (6.66 leaves. plant−1, 8.76 g DW, 48.79 mg.100 g−1 FW, and 1.50 g DW) respectively. Also, the same treatment combination realized significant results for the number of florets per inflorescence, floret diameter, floret vase life, number of corms per plant, and corm diameter by (12.85 florets. inflorescence−1, 7.03 cm, 8 days, 3.66 corms. plant−1, and 2.33 cm) consecutively. Further, adding ROR at 8% and spraying CZn at 40 mg.L−1 significantly increased the number of inflorescences (5.33 inflorescences. plant−1) and inflorescence length (39.10 cm).