Effect of different organic nutrients and growing conditions on morphological characteristics of papaya (Carica papaya L.)

Investigations on “Effect of different Organic nutrients and growing conditions on morphological characteristics of Papaya (Carica papaya L.)” have been conducted in the Experimental Farm, Department of Horticulture, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat during the period 2020-2022. The variety used for experiment was Sinta. The field experiment was laid out in Factorial Randomized Block Design (RBD) with four treatments replicated three times under three different growing conditions with spacing of 2 m × 1.5 m. The three different growing conditions were rain shelter with insect proof net (S1) (top covered with 200-micron UV film and side wall of 40 mesh net), rain shelter without insect proof net (S2) and Open condition. Treatment were FYM @ 5 kg/plant (T1), Vermicompost @ 3 kg/plant + Microbial consortium @ 20 g/plant (T2), Enriched compost @ 3 kg/plant + Microbial consortium @ 20 g/plant (T3) and Compost @ 3 kg/plant + Microbial consortium @ 20 g/plant (T4). The results revealed that most of the morphological characteristics were significantly influenced by combination of treatment and growing conditions. Among the combinations of treatment and growing conditions, T3S1 was the best in increasing growth characteristics viz., plant height (203.30 cm), collar girth (15.50 cm), number of leaves (42.17), number of lobes in leaf (14), petiole length (54.67 cm), number of flowers (24.50) at 240 DAP and initiated earliness in flowering. Number of fruits per plant (27.83), average fruit weight (1.45 kg), fruit yield (40.22 kg/plant) was also found to be significantly higher in T3S1 in both the years. Based on results obtained in present investigation, it can be concluded that Papaya plant grown under rain shelter with insect proof net (S1) (top covered with 200-micron UV film and side wall of 40 mesh net) and treated with soil application of Enriched compost @ 3 kg/plant + microbial consortium 20 g/plant (T3) i.e., T3S1 resulted in higher economic return (2.13) during 2017-18, with improvement in fruit quality of papaya cv. Sinta.