Revitalization of Old Rose (Rosa damascena Mill.) Garden for Agumenting Growth, Flower Yield and Essential Oil Quality by Pruning and Fertilizer Application

The flower quality and essential oil concentration plays a critical role in marketing in local and international market. To unfold yield potential of the plants in old garden, cultural practices and nutrition remain the only feasible option as a part of management to the farmer to provide congenial environment to the plant. The impact of pruning and fertilizer application on growth, flower yield, volatile oil composition, physiological and biochemical processes are still poorly investigated on damask rose. Hence, the field experiment was led-out with nine treatment conditions encompassing three pruning systems and three fertilizer dosages to standardize the best practice to rejuvenate the old rose garden. The results showed that the pruning at 60 cm from ground level and application of 200:100:100 N, P2O5 and K2O kg ha-1exhibited maximum increase in growth parameters and flowering parameters like bud length (13.17 cm), diameter (5.52 cm), number of flowers per plant (273.41), flower yield (66.54 q ha-1) and vase life (9.37 days) followed by pruning at 45 cm from ground level and application of 150:75:75 N, P2O5 and K2O kg ha-1. Essential oil characters like volatile oil percentage (0.051 %) and volatile oil productivity (0.973 l plant-1) were highest in treatments of pruning at 60 cm from ground level and application of 200:100:100 N, P2O5 and K2O kg ha-1. From the experiment it is suggested that the old rose gardens can be rejuvenated by pruning and fertilizer application for better growth, flower production and increase in essential oil.