Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

EFFECT OF POST-FLOWERING FOLIAR NUTRIENT SPRAYS ON MATURITY, YIELD AND QUALITY OF KARONDA (CARISSA CONJESTA LINN.) CV. ‘KONKAN BOLD’

M.P. Sanas, P.M. Haldankar, P.C. Haldavanekar and J. S. Dhekale

Abstract

An investigation was undertaken to find out the effect of post-flowering foliar nutrient sprays on maturity, yield and quality of Karonda (Carissa conjesta Linn.) cv. ‘Konkan Bold’ at Department of Horticulture, Dr. Balasaheb Sawant Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth, Dapoli, Dist. Ratnagiri (MH) India, 415712 during 2010-2012 for two consecutive fruiting seasons. The experiment was conducted in Randomised Block Design with eight treatments replicated three times. The treatments composed of foliar nutrient sprays viz T1 - Urea 1% + Urea 1%; T2 - Urea 1% + KNO3 1%; T3 - Urea 1% + MKP 0.5%; T4 - KNO3 1% + MKP 0.5%; T5 - KNO3 3% + KNO3 3%; T6 - K2SO4 0.5% + K2SO4 0.5%; T7 - K2SO4 0.5% + K2SO4 1%, T8 – Control (No Spray). In karonda, the maximum fruit retention was noticed in T7 (64.14%) while harvesting of karonda fruits was advanced by 16.50 days in treatment T5. All the treatments of foliar nutrient sprays improved the physical parameters of karonda fruits. The treatment T1 recorded the highest fruit length (2.94cm), fruit diameter (2.70cm) fruit weight (14.17g) and pulp weight (13.68g). The highest yield in number of fruits (140.92) per plant and in weight of fruits (1984.71g) per plant was recorded in T1. The treatment T5 improved the quality of fruits with the highest T.S.S., (18.55), reducing sugars (5.99%) and total sugars (7.98%).