_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ *Corresponding author: E-mail: sakshisvyas@gmail.com; Int. J. Plant Soil Sci., vol. 35, no. 18, pp. 1821-1830, 2023 International Journal of Plant & Soil Science Volume 35, Issue 18, Page 1821-1830, 2023; Article no.IJPSS.104113 ISSN: 2320-7035 Plant Growth and Post-harvest Life of Cut Gladiolus as Influenced by Zinc Level and Corm Grade A. K. Singh a , Sakshi Santosh Vyas a* , Anjana Sisodia a and Kalyan Barman a a Department of Horticulture, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi-221 005, India. Authors’ contributions This work was carried out in collaboration among all authors. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Article Information DOI: 10.9734/IJPSS/2023/v35i183464 Open Peer Review History: This journal follows the Advanced Open Peer Review policy. Identity of the Reviewers, Editor(s) and additional Reviewers, peer review comments, different versions of the manuscript, comments of the editors, etc are available here: https://www.sdiarticle5.com/review-history/104113 Received: 02/06/2023 Accepted: 05/08/2023 Published: 08/08/2023 ABSTRACT Gladiolus is one of the most beautiful, attractive, widely cultivated and economically important flowering plants worldwide including India. The research work was carried out to investigate the effect of corm grade and soil application of zinc sulphate on growth and post-harvest parameters of gladiolus cv. Malaviya Kundan at the Horticulture Research Farm and Post-Harvest Laboratory of Department of Horticulture, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. In an experiment seven different grades of mother corm (1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 cm) and zinc sulphate at three levels (15 and 30 kg/ha) along with control were used. Zinc was applied in soil at the time of field preparation. Experiment was replicated four times in Randomized Block Design. Application of ZnSO 4 at 15 kg/ha was found beneficial for various growth parameters, whereas, 30 kg/ha was found beneficial for most of the post-harvest parameters. Maximum plant height and duration of flowering was achieved with ZnSO 4 at 15 kg/ha, whereas, application of ZnSO 4 at 30 kg/ha resulted in maximum length of the spike, total number of florets opened and total uptake of water in vase. Among the Original Research Article