Performance of tulip cultivars at different altitudes of Northern Himalayas of India

Study on evaluation of different tulip cultivars was carried out during year 2018-19 at different altitudes of Northern Indian Himalayas(1550 m amsl, 1585 m amsl, 1600 m amsl , 1615 m amsl ) with an objective to delaminate the genetic diversity on the basis of qualitative and quantitative traits of growth, flowering and propagation ratio. Results depict the variability among different tulip cultivars in terms of vegetative, floral and propagation ratio. The variability response for minimum to maximum ranged 81.00(White flag ) to 114 .00(Candela) for days to bulb sprouting after planting , 107.00 to(Alectric) 135 .00 (Atilla graffiti) for days to flowering, 4.70(Candela) to 8.50 cm(Apeldoorn) for flower diameter,9.00(candela) to 23.00 days(Angelique) for duration of flowering, 37.00(white flag) to 54.51 cm(Apeldoorn) for plant height (cm) , 4.00(white flag) to 6.00(Apeldoorn) for number of leaves per plant, 1.00(candela) to 1.92(Apeldoorn) for number of bulbs plant -1- and 9.30(candela) to 19.14 g(Apeldoorn) for bulb weight plant -1 . Evaluation of tulip genotypes reveals improvement in performance at higher altitudes. Genetic variability on the basis of morphological parameters categorized cultivars early and mid from flowering pattern point of view. Significant correlation were observed for different parameters among the cultivars.