الفهرس 
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Abstract
The gladiolus is most important ornamental crop in Egypt, however, in the winter and spring, gladiolus as cut flowers are exported to Europa. Most commercial growers imported corms each year for cut. Since the multiplication rate of corms is low, we conducted a field experiment during two seasons under winter conditions at Experimental Station of the Horticulture Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafr El-Sheikh, Egypt, to enhance the increasing of propagation rates and evaluate its effects on other growth parameters.
In the experiment there were 12 treatments, replicated thrice consisting of all combinations of two varieties (Rose Supreme and White Prosperity), two manual removal of apical bud treatments and three growth regulators treatments. The apical bud on the planting corm were either removed or left intact before the same corms were soaked in a suspension with either 100 ppm benzyladenine (BA), 100 ppm gibberellic acid (GA3) or pure water.
The results showed that apical bud removal increased the number of corms and shoots. GA3 had limited the effect on corm and shoot production but instead resulted in increased total leaf area, leaf weight per shoot and number of florets per spike. BA on the other hand increased the number of corms and shoots. Overall, removal of the apical bud plus application of BA gave increased the number of corms and shoots but reduced the average corm diameter and leaves weight per shoot. This was clearer in ‘Rose Supreme’ than in ‘White Prosperity’.
BA-treated corm resulted in more corms and a higher yield of medium size (No.3) grade corm, while GA3-treated corm increased the number of corms in large size (No.1) grade corms. To maximize flower production for the coming season, farmers need to produce a high number of planting corms, but they also need to balance this with a sufficient size of the corms and the production of flowers of good quality. Application of growth regulators in combination with apical bud removal should be fine-tuned to avoid a situation that leads to a production of too many small or too few large corms.