′Umran′ Indian jujube is a widely grown cultivar due to its marketable quality and productivity, resulting in excellent market value. Despite its high quality, the product′s short shelf life poses a challenge for transportation, even within the domestic market. Hexanal with three concentrations (0.15%, 0.20%, and 0.25%) was applied to the fruit of ′Umran′ Indian jujube at both pit hardening and color break stages. Harvested fruits were stored for 28 days in a cold chamber of 7.5±1°C and 90-95% RH. The changes in fruit qualities were assessed with physicochemical characteristics, bioactive compounds, and enzymatic antioxidant activities every seven days. Fruits treated with hexanal of 0.20% reduced fruit weight loss and spoilage and maintained fruit firmness, soluble solids content, carotenoid content, and antioxidant activity. The activities of cell wall degrading enzymes investigated were suppressed. Of the antioxidant activities, superoxide dismutase and peroxidase were positively activated. Therefore, these results indicated that pre-harvest application of hexanal 0.20% improved physiochemical characteristics, maintained bioactive compounds, antioxidant enzyme activities, and extended the shelf life of Indian jujube fruits up to 21 days during cold storage.

Calcium is a very poorly translocated nutrient in the flesh of apple fruits with the advancement of growth. Within the fruit, movement is further restricted towards distal portion relative to proximal. Even numerous foliar applications of calcium do not always achieve the desired effect. Thus, the objective of this study was to enhance the calcium allocation in distal parts of apple fruit in response to whole plant application of abscisic acid (ABA). Five-year-old apple plant of Super Chief Sandidge on M9 were treated with ABA (Abscisic acid) @ 400ppm, calcium chloride @ 0.4% and water (Control) at four stages (30, 65, 100 and 135 days after full bloom (DAFB), and then analyzed for xylem functionality and calcium allocation in leaf and various fruit tissues at 10 days after each treatment i.e., S1-40; S2-75; S3-110 and S4-145 DAFB. The results obtained showed that xylem functionality started impairing just after S2, consequently the calcium allocation was also reduced in middle and calyx portions of fruit after that stage. However, xylem functionality was significantly retained (up to 30%) in ABA-treated fruits at S4 stage, which in other treatments was found to be nil at the calyx end of the fruit. This retention of xylem tissue functionality enhanced allocation of calcium from roots in middle and calyx end of the apple fruit. Leaf calcium was reduced with ABA applications. With the enhancement of calcium in the fruits, increases in soluble solids content (SSC) and titratable acidity were observed at maturity.

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Background: Majority of the Farmer in Punjab is of small holders and these farmers face a lot of problems in the process of inputs as well as output marketing. In order to provide solutions to the marketing problems of the such small holder farmers the union government came up with the idea of strengthening or initiating the formation of self-help groups, farmer interest groups, farmer cooperatives and clubs etc. for further integrating these entities into the farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs). Methods: For this study data were collected from 150 randomly selected respondents belonging to functional as well as non-functional FPOs. Garrett’s ranking technique was used to identify the most important constraints faced in the process of running FPOs. Result: This study attempted to identify the constraints in the process of operationalizing the FPOs in Punjab and it was found that managerial, socio-psychological, economic and marketing constraints were the major ones. Moreover, lack of trust, cooperation, financial crunch, lack of business management skills, unequal work delegation, ineffective group leadership, delayed payments were the major constraints. Mitigation strategies adopted by the executives of the FPOs were transparency of records, strong association with resource institutes, participatory decision making, efficient conflict management etc. The suggestions of the respondents for making FPOs more vibrant and sustainable were accountability of the resource institutes, capacity buildings of the stakeholders, dissemination of awareness about the functioning of FPOs among the members etc.