93 J. Hortl. Sci. Vol. 15(1) : 93-96, 2020 Short Communication Evaluation of Novel Gerbera (Gerbera jamesonii Bolus ex. Hooker F.) Hybrids for Flower Quality Traits under Polyhouse Condition Aswath C. and Rajiv Kumar Division of Floriculture & Medicinal Crops ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bengaluru - 560 089, India Email : aswath.c@icar.gov.in ABSTRACT The present study was carried out to evaluate the performance of two gerbera hybrids IIHR15-7 and IIHR16-8 along with their parents and a commercial check, for flower quality traits under polyhouse condition in completely randomized block design, during 2016-17 to 2018-19. The hybrids IIHR15-7 and IIHR16-8 had been developed through the half-sib method of breeding with IIHR9 and Arka Ashwa, respectively, as parents. Data for three years were pooled and analyzed statistically. In both hybrids IIHR15-7 and IIHR16-8, all the quantitative traits were found to be on par with the respective commercial checks. They had novel flower colour (as per RHS Colour Chart) i.e. NN155A, White Group for IIHR 15-7 and 65A Red Purple Group for IIHR16-8, with semi-double and double forms of flowers, respectively. These hybrids are suitable for cut-flower and flower arrangement purposes. Further, these hybrids will be useful for developing new gerbera hybrids with novel traits. Key words: Cut-flower, Evaluation, Gerbera, Novel hybrids, Polyhouse INTRODUCTION Gerbera (Gerbera jamesonii Bolus ex. Hooker F.),of the family Asteraceae, is one of the important cut- flowers grown for domestic and export markets. The total area of floriculture in India is 275000 ha and cut flower production of 783000 MT. Gerbera grown under 870 ha with productivity of 21300 t/ha, and stands fourth most important cut flower in India. Highest production of gerbera comes from Uttarakand with 7.80 (000’ MT), while share of Karnataka is 6.2 (000, MT) (Anon., 2017). There is a great demand for gerbera, particularly in European markets during the winter season and almost around the year in India. In view of importance of the crop and to bring down the high cost of imported gerbera, two indigenously gerbera hybrids i.e. IIHR15-7 and IIHR16-8 were developed and evaluated with their parents and commercial check for flower quality traits under polyhouse condition. Half sib method of crossing was employed to develop novel gerbera hybrids involving parents IIHR9 and Arka Ashwa during 2014-15 which were crossed with mixed pollen of different varieties. The hybrid seeds thus obtained were raise in vitro. The plants obtained from these single seeds were sub-cultured many times till the sufficient suckers are produced in vitro. The hardened plants were planted in polyhouse with 50% shade for evaluation. Two hybrids, IIHR15-7 and IIHR16-8, were selected on the basis of flower quality traits. Both the hybrids, along with their parents and the respective commercial check varieties Susan and Bismar k, wer e eva lua ted in r eplica ted tr ia l in Completely Ra ndomized Block Design under naturally-ventilated polyhouse for three consecutive years 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19. Observations were recorded on flower diameter (cm), flowerstalk length (cm), flowers talk diameter (mm), number of flowers/plant/month, vase life (days),flower colour from RHS Colour Chart and flower form. Data of three years were pooled and analyzed statistically using OPSTAT. Da ta presented in Table 1 showed tha t hybr id IIHR15-7 found to be on par with parent IIHR9 and This is an open access article d istributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommer cial-ShareAl ike 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. 94 J. Hortl. Sci. Vol. 15(1) : 93-96, 2020 commercial check Susan for flower quality traits. It recorded flower diameter of 11.89 cm, which was on par with the parent IIHR9 (11.46 cm), Arka Ashwa (11.86 cm) and commercial check Susan (12.04 cm); flower stalk length (61.39 cm) which was on par with parent IIHR9, Arka Ashwa and commercial check Susan; flower stalk diameter (5.79 mm) and number of flowers/plant/month (2.87) recorded were on par with the parent IIHR9 (2.43), Arka Ashwa (2.56) and commercial check Susan (2.69). The hybrid IIHR 15- 7 recorded vase life of 7.74 days which was also on pa r with the pa r ent IIHR9, Ar ka Ashwa a nd commercial check Susan. Hybrid IIHR 15-7 recorded novel flower colour (RHS Colour Chart) NN155A, White Group, with semi-double form of flowers. Kumar (2013), Singh et al. (2017) and Soni and Godara (2017) evaluated ten genotypes under naturally ventilated polyhouse at differ ent locations a nd recommended Kyllian, Vilassar, Partrizia, Szantal, Feliks and Dana Ellen for getting better cut flower yield and quality flowers. Evaluation of novel gerbera hybrids Table 1. Evaluation of gerbera hybrid IIHR 15-7 with parent and commercial check for flower quality traits under polyhouse (pooled data of three years) Hybrid/ Flower Flower Flower No. of Vase Flower Flower Genotype diameter stalk stalk flowers/ life colour form (cm) length diameter plant/ (days) (RHS colour (cm) (mm) month chart) IIHR15-7 11.89 61.39 5.79 2.87 7.74 White group Semi- NN155A double IIHR9 (parent) 11.46 61.19 5.80 2.43 7.29 Red purple Semi- group 69A double Arka Ashwa 11.86 61.10 6.64 2.56 7.42 Red purple Semi- (check) group 68D double Susan 12.04 62.81 6.62 2.69 7.59 White group Semi- (commercial NN155C double check) SEm± 0.47 0.44 0.38 0.49 0.51 - - C.D. at 5% NS NS NS NS NS - - Da ta presented in Table 2 showed tha t hybr id IIHR16-8 also found to be on par with parent Arka Ashwa and commercial check Bismark for flower quality traits.The hybrid IIHR 16-8 recorded flower diameter of 12.89 cm,which was on par with its parent Arka Ashwa (11.86 cm) and the commercial check Bismark (12.12 cm); flower stalk length (65.64 cm) was also found to be on par with parent Arka Ashwa (61.10 cm) and commercial check Bismark (62.93 cm); flower stalk diameter (5.77 mm) was on par with pa r ent Ar ka Ashwa (6. 64 mm) a nd the commercial check Bismark (6.21 mm) and, number of flowers/plant/month (2.85) recorded was on par with the parent Arka Ashwa (2.56) and commercial check Bismar k (2. 73). T he hybr id IIHR 16-8 recorded vase life of 7.00 days which was also on par with the parent Arka Ashwa and commercial check Bismark. The hybrid IIHR16-8 also recorded novel flower colour (RHS Colour Chart) 65A Red Purple Group, withdouble form of flowers. Aswath et al. (2016) also evaluated two novel gerbera hybrids with check for flower quality under naturally ventilated polyhouse. Mahender et al. (2017), Deepa et al. (2019) and Jangde et al. (2019) evaluated different gerbera varieties for flower quality traits and found that cultivars Marinella, Bonnie, Ambra, Sciella and Fredi recorded more number of flowers per plant under polyhouse condition. On the ba sis of thr ee yea r s of eva lua tion undernaturally-ventilated polyhouse, gerbera hybrids IIHR15-7 and IIHR 16-8 were found to be promising for novel flowercolour, flower form and flower quality traits. 95 Table 2. Evaluation of gerbera hybrid IIHR 16-8 with parent and commercial check for flower quality traits under polyhouse (pooled data of three years) Hybrid/ Flower Flower Flower No. of Vase Flower Flower Genotype diameter stalk stalk flowers/ life colour form (cm) length diameter plant/ (days) (RHS colour (cm) (mm) month chart) IIHR16-8 12.89 65.64 5.77 2.85 7.00 Red purple Double group 65A Arka Ashwa 11.86 61.10 6.64 2.56 7.42 Red group Semi- (parent and group 68D check) Bismark 12.12 62.93 6.21 2.73 7.26 Red purple Semi- (commercial 45B double check) SEm± 0.50 0.47 0.43 0.41 0.52 - - C.D. at 5% NS NS NS NS NS - - J. Hortl. Sci. Vol. 15(1) : 93-96, 2020 Aswath et al. IIHR 16-8 (Arka Pink)IIHR 15-7 (Arka White) REFERENCES Anonymous. 2017. Area and production statistics of horticultural crops. National Horticulture Board, New Delhi. Aswath, C., Kumar R., Rao, T.M. and Dhananjaya, M.V. 2016. Evaluation of novel ger ber a (Gerbera jamesonii Bolus ex. 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