Impact of foliar application of potassium and its spray schedule on yield and quality of sweet orange (Citrus sinensis) cv. Jaffa

Abstract

A field study was undertaken to extrapolate the impact of foliar application of potash and its spray schedule on yield and physical and chemical parameters of sweet orange cv. Jaffa at experimental orchard, Department of Horticulture, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar. The results revealed that foliar application of KNO₃ at both the doses (2 and 4%) was found significantly or marginally better than K₂SO₄ (1.5 and 3.0%) and control (water spray) in increasing the juice content. Peel content, peel thickness and rag content was found to be influenced significantly due to different treatments on K and its spray schedule. Minimum rag content (38.11%) was recorded with foliar application of KNO₃ at the rate of 4% and maximum with control. Ascorbic acid and acidity were found maximum with two foliar applications of KNO₃ at the rate of 4% in the last week of April and August. Foliar application of KNO₃ at the rate of 4% was found most effective in increasing yield of sweet orange over control and other K treatments. Spray of K in the last week of April, May and August was found superior in increasing yield closely followed by two sprays in the last week of April and August. The findings signify the importance of K spray in enhancing yield and quality of sweet orange under semi-arid north western conditions of India.

Effect of Micronutrients on Growth, Yield and Quality Parameters of Sweet Orange (Citrus sinensis L.) cv. Mosambi

“…T 3 600:600:300 (N:P:K g/tree) The lowest number of fruits per plant was with Water spray + 600:200:300, NPK g /tree (142 fruits/ tree). The present findings are also in agreement with the results of Wang et al, (2004) and Dalal et al, (2017) Vijay et al, (2016) in sweet orange.…”

“…The increase in yield parameters could be due to the application of phosphorus with soil application and micronutrients through foliar application at critical stages which ultimately could have favoured fruit growth and quality. Similar observations were also recorded in sweet orange (Vijay, 2016;Wei et al, 2002). The effect of phosphorus with soil application and micronutrients levels with different treatments on fruit length and fruit diameter were monitored with fruit analysis.…”

Impact of Foliar Application of Potassium on Quality of Pomegranate cv. Bhagwa

“…It was recorded that maximum acidity was found in the control treatment thereby decreasing the pH and it may be due to decreased cell size and cell division due to lighter turgor pressure and internal auxin content whereas minimum acidity was found in plants treated with potassium and this might be due to the function of potassium in the synthesis of more carbohydrates and their translocation from leaves to fruits and accumulation of sugars which enhanced the pH, making the juice less acidic and increased ascorbic acid with foliar application of potassium might be related with improved sugar metabolism and also due to role of potassium in activating the synthesis of ascorbic acid somewhere between D-Glucose to L-Ascorbate. The results were in line with Heshi et al, (2001), Khayyat et al, (2012), Thirupathi and Ghosh (2015) and Hamouda et al, (2015) in pomegranate, Dalal et al, (2017) and Vijay et al, (2016) in sweet orange cv. Jaffa, Manivannan et al, (2015) in guava, Altindisli et al, (1999) in grapes, Yadav et al, (2014) in berand Baiea et al, (2015) in mango.…”

“…Such similar results are also reported in other crops like in sweet orange cv. Jaffa (Dalal et al, 2017) and (Vijay et al, 2016), mango (Vijayalakshmi and Srinivasan, 2000), grapes (Sharma and Sindhu, 2005), guava (Manivannan et al, 2015), banana (Nandan et al, 2011), ber (Yadav et al, 2014) and in apple (Doroshenko et al, (2005) and (Yousuf et al, 2018).…”

APPLICATION OF K, Ca, and Mg ON PEEL THICKNESS AND FRUIT CRACKING INCIDENCE OF CITRUS

“…In addition, this treatment also increases the speed of fruit development, significantly reducing the broken fruit and increasing the quality of WNO sweet orange fruits. Also added by El-Rahman et al (2012), that K applied in the form of 4-6 % KNO 3 significantly increases skin thickness thereby reducing the incidence of cracking, increases fruit size, and production, while the combination of KNO 3 5% + 2.4 D 20 ppm sprayed 60 days after flower blooms will increase fruit size (Boman & Hebb, 1998;Rattanpal et al, 2005;Vijay et al, 2016). Improvement of irrigation management, mulching, manure application, as well as other inorganic additions can reduce fruit cracking on lemon (Sandhu & Bal, 2013).…”