Irrigation and soil mulching can improve the quality of flower stems of gladiolus

Gladiolus is one of the most important bulbous flowers produced worldwide. The objective of this study was to evaluate the combined effect of irrigation and soil mulching on soil water conservation and its effect on gladiolus floral stem quality. Two field experiments were conducted with gladiolus at the Federal University of Santa Maria, state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, during 2019 and 2020. The experimental design was a completely randomized three-factor design, with two cultivars (Red Beauty and T704 in experiment 1 - E1 and Red Beauty and Jester in experiment 2 - E2), two cultivation systems (soil mulched with straw and bare soil) and two water regimes (irrigated and non-irrigated) as treatments. When gladiolus plants reached the R2 stage (harvest point), total stem length, spike length, stem diameter and final number of florets were evaluated. Variables were subjected to analysis of variance and Tukey's test at 5% of error probability. Irrigation improved the quality of floral stems, with greater stem and spike length, greater diameter and number of florets per spike, thus resulting in stems with greater decorative value. The soil covered with straw did not influence the quality parameters of the floral stem of the gladiolus, the only observed difference between cultivars being the variable length of the spike.