No abstract

An investigation on improvement of quality of guava cv. Lalit fruits through bagging was carried out at

: A field experiment was conducted to see the efficiency of shoot pruning at various length and time on production of off season flowering, fruiting and quality of fruits by avoiding their normal time of flowering. The investigation was carried out on ten years old guava crop cv. LALIT grown at subtropical area of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India with four length (15, 30, 45 and 60 cm of length from tip) of shoot pruning performing in April, May and June based on Randomized Block Design with three replications. The results revealed that among the various pruning treatments pruning at 45 cm length in May, T 8 produced maximum number of leaves (120 days after pruning, 20), flowers (13.67) and fruit yield (14.71 t/ha). Analysis on fruit quality showed that pruning in May at 45 cm length from shoot tip also produced superior quality fruits in term of higher TSS (13.17 0 B), vitamin C (235.17 mg/ 100g). More interestingly, shoot pruning in general, favoured off season flowering which could help growers to get more profit as compared to normal rainy season fruiting. Thus, the present study suggested that moderate shoot pruning in May at 45 cm length could be the best for off season quality fruiting of guava.Key Words : Crop regulation, Fruiting, Guava, Shoot pruning View Point Article : Meena, Kamal Ram, Maji, Sutanu and Meena, Suresh Chand (2017). Use of shoot pruning for crop regulation and quality fruit production of guava (Psidium guajava L.). Internat. J. agric. Sci., 13 (2) : 184-191,

SUMMARYA field experiment was conducted to study the effect of foliar application of calcium and boron on vegetative growth, flowering, fruiting and fruit quality of young pomegranate plants cv. BHAGWA. The experiment was set under Randomized Block Design with application of calcium (3 and 5%), boron (0.25 and 0.5%) and their combinations with three replications. The experiment showed that combined application (T 6 ) of calcium (3%) and boron (0.25%) increased plant height at higher rate as compared to their sole application and control. It (T 6 ) also produced more number of secondary branches at early stage but, under T 7 (calcium 3% and boron 0.5%) at later stages of growth. Although, it was a young orchard, however, flower production was higher under T 6 followed by T 7 compared to others which was reflected on fruit yield and fruit yield was the highest (359.5 kg/ha) under T 6 followed by T 7 . Fruit weight and fruit size was recorded maximum (77.0 g, 6.1 cm length, 6.00 cm diameter) under T 7 . But, other quality parameters like fruit volume (70 ml), specific gravity (1.10 g/cc), TSS (12.57 0 B) and sugars (6.66 % Total sugars, 4.73 % reducing sugar) were very good under T 6 . It is concluded that the combined application of calcium (3%) and boron (0.25%) (T 6 ) could be practiced for good growth, yield and quality fruits of pomegranate.

A field experiment was conducted during rabiseason of 2014-2015 at Department of Applied Plant Sci-ence (Horticulture), Baba saheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow-226025 (U.P.) India to find out the effect of different dates of transplanting and mulching on growth, yield and quality of onion (Allium cepa L.) cv. Nasik Red. There were 16 treatments comprising 4 dates of transplanting (15th November, 1st, 15th and 30th December) and 3 mulching (saw dust, rice husk and wheat straw) while, without mulching as control and laid out under two factor RBD with three replications. The study clearly revealed that there were significant effects of all treatments on vegetative growth, yield and quality attributes of onion. Plant height (65.34 cm), number of leaves per plant (8.89), length of leaves (56.07 cm), neck thickness (18.75 mm), yield (5.166 kg/plot and 387.46 q/ha) were found maximum at 1st December planting with wheat straw mulching (T7). The best quality bulb in respect of maximum neck thickness (12.35 mm), basal diameter (13.61.mm), diameter of bulb (54.41 mm polar and 64.15 mm equatorial), length of bulb (65.17 mm), number of scales per bulb (9.24), bulb moisture (85.06 %) T.S.S. (13.84 oBrix), ascorbic acid (10.47 mg/100g), total sugars (10.39 %) etc. were also obtained when mulching was done with wheat straw and transplant-ed on 1st December (T7) followed by T6 (planted on 1st December and mulching with rice husk). The study clearly concluded that i.) mulching is good for production of onion, ii.) late transplanting on 30th December showed very poor performance irrespective of mulching and iii) transplanting on 1st December and mulching with wheat straw was the best combination for getting good quality yield of onion.