The quality of fruits is a major factor limiting the export of fruit. One of the important causes of quality deterioration of fruits is their physiological disorder. Present study was conducted to study the effect of inter-fruit competition on physiological disorder of pomegranate(Punica granatum L.) “Aril Browning (AB)”, incidence was higher in panicles with more number of fruits, i.e. panicles with two fruits had high intensity of both medium intensity (13%) and high intensity (2%) of AB incidence in comparison to panicle with one fruit,which had 7 % of medium intensity (MI) and 1% of high intensity (HI) of incidence. Competition among fruits was further accelerated by treating the fruits with growth regulators viz GA3 and PBZ. The GA3 treated fruit was showing fewer incidences (7 % of MI of browning affected aril and zero percentage of HI of incidence) over the control (15% of MI and 2 % of HI) in contrast to PBZ treatment, which was showing higher incidence (21 % of MI and 3 % of HI). Analysis of result suggests that interfruit competition among the fruits growing at the same time leads to development of sinks of different strength. Such differences results in unequal distribution of nutrients to developing fruits which disturbs the physiology of fruit development leading to biochemical changes which ultimately leads to initiation of aril browning. Thus, this study provides evidence for the role of interfruit competition on development of the disorder.

No abstract