Effect of planting dates on growth, flowering and seed production of garland chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum coronarium)

A field experiment carried out to study the effect of planting dates on growth, flowering and seed production of garland chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum coronarium L.) under mid-hills of Himachal Pradesh during 2010-11 and 2011-12 exhibited significant influence on growth, flowering and seed production. Planting was done at an interval of 15 days starting from 17 September in both the years with planting dates as; 17 September, 2 October, 17 October, 1 November, 16 November and 1 December. The maximum plant height (120.29 cm), number of side stems/plant (16.23), early flowering (95.08 days), duration of flowering (41.43 days), number of flowers/stem (21.98), number of heads/plant (308), number of seeds/head (243.95), seed yield/plant (77.40 g) and 1 000 seed weight (1.67 g) were recorded when planting was done on 17 September. However head formation was earliest (158.53 days) in 1 December planting.