Effect of Nutrients and Growth Regulators on Fruit Set, Fruit Retention and Yield of Ber CV. Banarasi

Fruit quality is found best under hot sunny and dry conditions but there should be a support to the growth and flowering leaving enough soil moisture to carry the fruit to maturity. The experiment was conducted at Regional Research Station, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Aruppukottai and laid in a Randomized Block design with four replications. This study was undertaken to determine the effect of micronutrients and plant growth regulators on morpho-physiological and yield and yield parameters of ber under rainfed vertisol and to fix up suitable method of application of micronutrients and plant growth regulators combination for high yield and quality of ber under rainfed vertisol conditions. The plots had five treatments viz., T1 - Nutrient mixture, T2 - Nutrient mixture + NAA 50ppm, T3 - Nutrient mixture + Salicylic acid 50ppm, T4 - Nutrient mixture + NAA 50ppm+ Salicylic acid 50ppm, T5 - Control. The variety Banarasi was used as experimental material with all normal cultural practices followed for ber cultivation. The foliar applications of a nutrient mixture with hormones were sprayed at full foliage stage and the peak flowering stage. Three trees were selected from each treatment and replication for recording morphological observations on Tree height (m), Girth (cm), Number of primary branches per tree, No of secondary branches per Tree and Tree spread East – West and North – South (m). Physiological parameters viz., Ascorbic acid (mg/100g), soluble protein (mg /g), total chlorophyll (mg/g), specific leaf weight (mg/cm2), relative water content (%) and chlorophyll stability index (%) were recorded. The yield and quality characters like., number of fruits per tree, pulp weight (g), stone weight (g), pulp stone ratio and total soluble solids (brix) were recorded during the harvest stage. Comparing the five treatments, foliar application of Nutrient mixture + Salicylic acid 50ppm (T3) recorded the highest value in morphological characters. While the treatment T4 (Nutrient mixture + NAA 50ppm+ Salicylic acid 50ppm) registered the highest value in physiological, quality and yield characters in ber. The increase in the fruit yield with the foliar application of nutrients may be attributed to increased fruit size, fruit weight and minimum fruit drop. In addition, more cell division, cell elongation and translocation of photosynthates and metabolites from leaves to the developing fruit resulted in higher fruit yield.