Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

INFLUENCE OF CROP LOAD AND FOLIAR NUTRIENT SPRAYS ON PLANT NUTRIENT CONTENT AND POST HARVEST QUALITY OF APPLE (MALUS X DOMESTICA BORKH.) CV. RED DELICIOUS DURING STORAGE

Kousar Javaid K.R. Dar, Suja N. Qureshi, Ishrat Parveen Sheikh Mehraj Yusra A. Basu Rahila Shameem and Rehana Javid

Abstract

Present investigation entitled “Effect of Crop Load and Nutrient sprays on plant nutrient content and post harvest quality of apple (Malus x domestica Borkh.) cv. Red Delicious during storage was undertaken in a 20 year old private orchard at Sopore during 2012. Thirty-six trees of uniform growth and vigour were selected for experimentation. Three crop loads viz low, medium and high were maintained on the selected trees. The trees were sprayed with urea (0.5%) solely or in combination with potassium sulphate (0.5%) or calcium chloride (0.3%) or both. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design with factorial arrangement assigning combinations of crop loads and foliar nutrient sprays with three replications. The observations revealed that leaf and shoot nutrient content, PLW, TSS, titrable acidity and fruit firmness during storage were significantly affected by crop load and foliar nutrient sprays. Among various crop load treatments average TSS (15.96%), PLW (10.16 %), titrable acidity (0.25 %) were significantly highest in fruits harvested from trees with low crop load. In response to various nutrient sprays, maximum average TSS (16.64 %), PLW (9.62 %) etc were recorded in trees sprayed with urea in combination with potassium. With the advancement of storage period TSS and PLW increased, however titrable acidity and fruit firmness decreased. Prolonged storability was recorded in fruits harvested from heavy cropping trees sprayed with urea in combination with calcium.