Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

GROWTH, YIELD AND QUALITY OF GUAVA (PSIDIUM GUAJAVA L.) AUGMENTED BY FOLIAR APPLICATION OF PHOSPHORUS AND MICRONUTRIENTS

R.N. Kanpure, D.S. Mandloi, S.R. Anjanawe and B. Kachouli

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted to evaluate the foliar spray of phosphorus and micronutrients on morphophysico, vegetative, reproductive, yield and quality of guava (Psidium guajava L.) cv. Gwalior-27 at the Instructional cum research fruit orchard, Department of Fruit Science, KNK College of Horticulture, Mandsaur during 2011-12. The treatments consisted of foliar sprays of two levels of phosphorus i.e., 1.5% and 3.0%, three levels of Fe i.e., 0.2%, 0.4% and 0.6% and three levels of Zn i.e., 0.4%, 0.6% and 0.8%.The results revealed that the foliar application of phosphorus 3.0% + Fe 0.6% + Zn 0.8% (T14) significantly influenced the morpho-physical, reproductive and quality parameters of guava. The maximum increases in plant height (0.77 m), canopy spread N-S direction (0.75m) & E-W direction (0.74 m), maximum fruit length (7.13 cm) and fruit diameter (7.04 cm) at harvest, fruit volume (243 ml), Pulp (96.05%), Seed (3.95%), pulp: seed ratio (24.31), number of flower/plant(1205), fruit setting (75.33%), fruit drop (36.33%), fruit retention at maturity (63.67%), number of fruits per plant(252.67), weight per fruit (241g), yield per plant (60.89 Kg), Yield per hectare (168.66q), TSS (11.770Brix), acidity (0.40%), Ascorbic acid content (241.67 mg/100 g pulp), TSS: acid ratio (29,42), pectin content (0.80%), reducing sugar (5.22%), non reducing sugar (4.59%), total sugar (9.81%). However, the foliar sprays of phosphorus 3.0% + Fe 0.6% + Zn 0.6% (T13) had the statistically equal performance of almost characters under studied.