BABUL CHANDRA SARKER
Principal Scientific Officer and Head
Pomology Division, Horticulture Research Centre, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), Joydebpur, Gazipur
M. A. RAHIM
Assistant Professor
Department of Horticulture, Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), Mymensingh, Bangladesh
Yield and quality of mango, Foliar application, Potassium nitrate, Urea
Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh
Crop-Soil-Water Management
The experiment was carried out at the BAU Germplasm Centre, Department of Horticulture, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh which is located at 240 26/ latitude and 900 15/ longitude with an altitude of 8.3 m above the sea level during September 2006 to July 2007. Investigations related to bio-chemical analysis were carried out in the Department of Biochemistry of Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), Mymensingh. The cultivar Amrapali was used in the study. The age of the plants was 9 years at the initiation of experiment with a plant spacing of 5m x 5m. The experiment was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with 3 replications. Six treatments viz. Potassium nitrate (KNO3) at 4%, 6% and 8%; Urea at 2% and 4% and Control (water spray) were used in the study. The solutions of 4, 6% and 8% KNO3 were prepared by dissolving 40, 60 and 80 g of KNO3 into 1 litre of fresh water each with 3 drops of Tween 80. The urea solutions of 2 and 4% were prepared by dissolving 20 and 40 g of urea in 1 litre of fresh water each with 3 drops of Tween 80, respectively. The KNO3 and urea solutions as per treatment were sprayed to the plants on 15 November 2006. The data of the following parameters were recorded: length of terminal shoot, number of leaves per terminal shoot, leaf area, length and breadth of panicle, number of secondary branches per panicle, date of first panicle appearance, number of panicles per plant at 10 day intervals, fruit set per panicle, number of fruits retained per panicle at 10 day intervals starting from pea stage upto harvest, date of harvest, number of fruits per plant, average fruit weight, fruit length, fruit breadth, fruit thickness, edible portion, stone pulp ratio, peel pulp ratio, yield, shelf life, TSS, pH, titratable acidity, vitamin C, dry matter content, reducing sugar, non reducing sugar and total sugar content. The length, breadth and number leaves of ten randomly selected terminal shoots at flowering stage were measured and the average was worked out. Leaf area was measured for all the 50 leaves taking 5 from each of ten above selected shoots by a leaf area meter and expressed as square centimeter. The length and breadth of panicle and number of secondary branches per panicle of 10 randomly tagged panicles covering the whole tree was recorded and the average was worked out. Ten panicles were randomly selected from each treatment. The initial number of fruits of each panicle and the fruits to be retained per panicle was recorded at 10 day intervals starting from pea stage up to harvest were counted and the average was worked out. Ten randomly selected fruits from each plant were used for taking fruit characters and the average was measured. After harvest, ten randomly selected fruits were allowed to ripen at room temperature and fruit quality was determined using 10 fruits per tree. Total soluble solid (TSS) of 10 fully ripe fruits for each treatment was estimated by a hand refractometer and the average was worked out. The titratable acidity (Ranganna, 1979), vitamin C content (Plummer, 1971), reducing sugar content (Miller, 1972) and total sugar content (Jayaraman, 1981) of mango pulp were determined. The recorded data on different parameters of the experiment were tabulated and analyzed and the treatment means were separated by Least Significant Difference (LSD) test at 5 % level of significance.
Bangladesh J. Agril. Res. 38(1): 145-154, March 2013,ISSN 0258-7122
Journal