Growth and Flowering Response of Cymbidium Orchid (Cymbidium erythrostylum) in Different Potting Media, NPK and Sucker Management

Abstract

Aims: The study aimed to evaluate the effect of growing media including mineral nutrition and sucker management to determine the effective growing media composition for plant growth and early flowering. Study Design: The experiment was conducted at Himalayan Orchid Farm, Godawari during 2013 to 2014. Three factors: media (viz. farmers’ media, bark + charcoal + litter, and bark only); NPK and sucker management (control and removal of side sucker) were evaluated under factorial design with four replications. Results and Discussion: The result revealed that emergence of flower differed among the media and NPK level as media having bark only gave the highest number of flowering plants, while farmers practiced media was resulted in none flowering plants. The sucker retained management showed the higher vegetative growth; while sucker removed treatment gave the higher flowering plants. Similarly, bimonthly application of NPK 19:19:19 was found superior over control. Conclusion: It is concluded that the emergence of flowers found excellent on the media having bark only among the potting media and NPK level as while farmers practiced media was resulted in none flowering plants. Thus, potting media having higher proportion of pine bark would be advised for early flowering in contrast to compost on the media.