EFFECT OF SUMMER PRUNING ON THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF ROSE CULTIVARS

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of summer pruning on the quality and performance of rose cultivars at the Ornamental Horticulture Nursery Farm, NWFP Agricultural University, Peshawar, Pakistan to observe ten rose cultivars for their performance with and without summer pruning. The experiment was laid-out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with split plot arrangement having 2 factors. There were two treatments i.e. pruning in summer and no pruning in summer. Among the cultivars that received summer pruning, cv. Lintern was the earliest to sprout (in 6.50 days). Maximum number of petals per flower (31.36) and number of flowers (20.05) were recorded in unpruned plants, while the summer pruned plants produced minimum results for all the mentioned parameters. Among the cultivars, maximum number of petals (47.59), number of flowers (26.64) and plant height (125.00 cm) were recorded in cv. Baby Bray. Cv. Lintern produced flowers with maximum persistence (11.06 days) and cv. Sharif Asma produced the biggest flowers (7.08 cm in diameter). Minimum flowers (5.55), with smallest size (5.15 cm in diameter) were observed in cv. Lintern, whereas cv. Bright Smile produced minimum petals (10.31 per flower) with minimum flower persistence (5.03 days) during the summer seasons.